>> from New York City. It's the cue covering automation anywhere. Imagine, brought to you by automation anywhere you >> were in midtown Manhattan, at the automation anywhere. Imagine Crawford's twenty nineteen really psyched to be here. Fifteen hundred people talking about our P A. But really, the Rp story is much more than just robotic process. Automation is really a new way to work, which we hear about all over the place and really reimagining what this technology can do. We're excited to have our next guest. She's Shelly Kramer, an analyst and partner for feature research. Shelley, great to see you. >> Great to see you, too. And you got it. >> I got a right. >> You got it. >> Well, you're a very busy lady. Got all kinds of stuff going on, which is what we like. So first off, just kind of Have you been here before? General impressions of the show. >> This is my first, Uh, this is my first, uh, automation anywhere event. And so it's exciting. I write a lot about our PPA and about the future of work and work force transformation. So it's great to be >> here. Yeah. And you just wrote not a super uplifting article linked in about, you know, employee dissatisfaction and some of the issues with employee retention. We talked before. We turn the cameras on about things like calling him human resource is, you know, and human capital there, they're people. And I thought my here really touched on it. Well, in the keynote today that this is not a rip and replace technology for people. This is a tool to help us do our jobs better, just like our laptops and our mobile phones and our application. So are you excited about the opportunity? See, it is this transformative. >> I do see this transformative. And I think that before you talk about what we talked about, the technology that we have to talk about people and Simpson and I'm pulling this out of my memory banks. So on average, about eighty two percent of employees within any organization are disengaged. OK, eighty two percent. >> So the ping pong tables and the tables are not doing it. >> And so when you think about it and engaged workforce are people who wake up in the morning or whatever it is, they go to work and who are excited about what they're doing excited about their company. They're working for love, the culture that they're working within. I love all those things that they're doing. And so when you realize that eighty two percent of people are disengaged, that's problematic. Right then, you're talking about the toughest talent acquisition markets that we've had in a really long time. So we're all fighting for top talent, not just top tech talent but any kind of talent. And so focusing on how we can make the workforce better and create better cultures and put systems and processes in place that can make people do their jobs more efficiently, more productively and actually like them. That's to me. That's the beginning of where we get to this technology piece and what our P a Khun Dio How? Aye aye plays a role in there and how you can. How employees can partner you think of technology as a partner, as opposed to worrying about technology replacing them. So I think it's an exciting time in the workforce, and when you think about it that way, it makes a lot of sense. >> Do you think the difference in kind of the expectations that people have when they Goto work to be engaged as a function of the millennials who are looking for something that's more mission lead. Is it a function of just the competition? It's so robust that before people could get away with having, you know, maybe a less compelling work experience. What do you think is driving? The changer hasn't changed, and maybe now we're just paying more attention to it. >> You know, I think it's changed in a little bit. I think that you and I are old enough that when we were coming of age and we were working our way up the corporate ladder, you know, you kind of sold a little bit of your soul to the company store. No matter. I mean, I gripped in advertising, right, and, you know, I work crazy hours, and I loved it. But I never questioned that there were dues that I had to pay, and that's what you think. And I think that people don't necessarily expect the world on a platter. But I think especially the more skilled you are, whether it's a knowledge of tack or whatever it is in today's market, I think that ueno and again it could be someone my age. It could be someone that's twenty five. It could be someone that's forty. I can find something else. So minute, this isn't doing it for me, right? I can go find something else right now. That said, there are also people who are punching a clock. You know what I'm saying? And I don't mean ship workers. Necessarily. As much as I need to pay the mortgage, I need to get my kid's bed. You know, I don't love this job. Maybe it's a path to something. One of my daughters works for an insurance company. She has a very non glamorous job. She doesn't love it, but she knows she has to do it for X amount of time before she can be considered for this different promotion. And she is watching the clock on literally. I'm getting to that milestone and asking for her promotion. And if that doesn't happen, she'LL leave. So so I think that when you can, people don't feel like they need to be stuck, right? So I think that way. As a CZ leaders and his executives in the workforce, I think you always have to be mindful about what the work environment that you're creating is and focus on. How do we keep how do we get people? And how do we build the value props that we used when we entice them to say yes to our offer? How do we get them to stay? >> S o many things there, But But, you know, what things you just mentioned is is I don't think they accept it like we did. Maybe when we're coming up, which is, you know, you hire somebody and you hire them for the act tributes that they're bringing in the organization than it used to be. Then you give him the employee rulebook and you basically squash, you know, kind of all the individual creativity and ingenuity and enthusiasm, which is why you hired him in the first place. And we don't see that as much anymore. But at the same token, you know, not everyone's worried about robots taken their job at the same time. There's so many unfulfilled Rex out there. And as you said, it's the most competitive labor market out there. How our employers supposed to kind of square that circle because they need to bring the automation they want to keep the people happy. It's a hyper competitive market, and they need mission. But, you know, we gotta pay the bills and get the products out. >> I think that So I think that we can never forget that people that work for our companies need to pay the bills too. Right? So when you can give them something that they could be excited about, Tio dio that helps. Right? But it just kind of like I'm thinking back Teo, uh, presentation and I can't remember his name. But the V p of product did a presentation about today on a loan mortgage loan application. Okay, that has to be like one of the most boring things, right? If you're in that mortgage loan processing, do this. Do this. Do this villain this spreadsheet love about, By the way, I hate creating spreadsheets. I just want to look at a finished one. But anyway, it was so cool to just look at this, and I shot a video of it, shared it on Twitter. If you want to see what I'm talking about, but which is so cool that you can do this and do this and do this and you know you create this process. And in no time the technology has done all the work and all the calculations, and you've got a recommendation approved, not approved. And so if you're in the mortgage loan business, way to think about that leased, the way that I think to think about it is, doesn't mean that your job is going to go away. It's just like my daughter doing that not very exciting job that she's doing. If automation could fuel some of the mundane, repeatable, banal tasks so that she could focus on the other part of the equation where it's more interesting and more exciting, I think then that's really the value equation there. But I think as I think, what businesses have todo is be transparent and very honest with their employees and tell them, you know, this is our This is why we're doing this. This is what our means, and this is how it's going to add value. It we're not doing this to necessarily replace humans. This is so that we can make this work better, efficient more, you know. And I think that you know, I'll step back and say for a personal example. We went through a process last year where we evaluated all of our business processes, and we looked at how much time our employees were spending sweet track time doing certain tasks. And then we were realizing, you know, the value there. We were actually paying too much in terms of the time, investment or tasks that didn't make sense to. Then we set out integrating automation into our processes, and it was it was a big project, right? And people were kind of worried, you know, and they were kind of worried about it. But one of the things that way told them early on with, like, This is not so that we don't have work for you. This is so that we can make what it is you're doing more efficient and you could do things you like better, >> right? Right. >> And so and that has happened and way didn't lose any of our team. And a lot of those task that they were doing are now automated. They're doing stuff that they like more. So I think that I think that's really the challenge for businesses. Two is the messaging right and then involving your teams in the process, appointment of any kind of >> technology. I think it's just the soul crushing. You know, expression is so it's so valid for for these types of activities. And I think again may hear had a great stat. Four percent of US jobs required a medium level of creativity, which you know people want to get out from under that. But if we can define it as a tool and is a thinking like personal digital assistants, my body will. That used to be just my palm three was my p d. A. Right wow how no. One No one was threatened by the Palm taking the job away. So I think you know, you're right. If we can put it in the context of it's just another tool that's just gonna help you get your job done. That's a very different way to frame the problem versus kind of just ripping replace narrative, which we hear kind of over and over again. >> Well, and I think it also goes beyond Jeff. It's goes beyond, and I think that employees at every level have to understand this. It goes beyond just helping you get your job done. It really is about, you know, cos that survived today and tomorrow are the companies who transformed. And, you know, we talk a lot about digital transformation. And you know, I'm out there on the front lines all day, every day, and I can promise you there are many, many companies who are far from really understanding and embracing this and understanding what it takes from a technology standpoint and the value, that data ad and how to use that data and and the impact that that has on customer experience and all that sort of thing. So So I think it's really is about much more than this will make your jobs suck less >> right, right, Right. >> I think it's about this is how our company stay successful. This is how you helped make your job in the role you play within our organization, what you want it to be, right? And I think that you could probably telling, you know, I've been marketing because I'm always thinking about you know how I know how you spend something and I don't mean in a spin like a PR way, but I think we all have to step back and think about it in terms of the whole equation. And there are a whole lot of companies that don't exist anymore, right? You know whether you're talking about the financial services sector and you know and every business everywhere is being disrupted. I told this story. I was I was talking with me here earlier this morning and I was telling him a story about how my husband, I just bought a new car and we expected to get a loan for that car from our community. It's not a community from our our local bank local. Our local bank has been recently purchased by a bigger bank in the last couple of years, but we run all of our corporate money. I mean, everything that we've ever done is here in this way. You know your spell. ITA loan application. No problem. Give us an interest rate. No problem. But they made every part. My husband I vote travel a lot for business, and they're every part of the process required us to be somewhere together to have an official closing. To do this, to do that and it was just like way could never purchased this car because they were making it so difficult for us. So we enter death talking with the car dealer who said I'm not God. We can fix you up, financed it through their banking partner, which is a huge national bank approved in five minutes. Loan documents in five minutes. Hey, come on out. You sign this tomorrow? He consigned this when he gets, you know. And when I talked to my bank after the transaction, they said, Here's the deal. I wanted to do business with you. But when you make it difficult for a customer to give you their money, they're not gonna hesitate to give somebody else there money, Right? So So I think the banking industry is one example of the these processes that air so cumbersome that in some ways can be automated, but it just it doesn't make sense. And customers today you and I are impatient people as our people younger than we are way. No, there has to be a better way. An analogy could give us a better >> win it right, And, you know, they could use different data sets. And I mean, I've bought himself recently, and you just push the button on the phone and it takes a minute. The wheel spins and then your approved right and you're done if you're done, and it's it's a completely different experience. But the part about the digital transformation I want to follow because it came up today where a lot of times people are the integration point between these systems very similar to the example you just used and you can't digitally transform. If all these automated systems ultimately have the bottleneck through some person to take this piece Veda and stick it over there, right? So it's it's absolutely critical to get those people out of the way, right? So as you look forward twenty nineteen, what are some of the big trends beyond our P A and kind of personal digital assistants not called palm, uh, that you're seeing and that you're excited about? >> Well, I think that, you know, it's hard not to be excited about our p A. Just simply because of, you know, it's predicted to be a one point nine billion this year and to almost double by twenty twenty one. I mean, it makes sense that companies like automation anywhere doubling down on that right. It also makes sense that gigantic companies like IBM and Jo Lloyd and you know why. I mean, you >> know, hearing for >> all here, right? There's a reason for that, right? Because IBM customers want this and Microsoft's customers want this. So So I think that in general I think that technology is fueling our world. Our personal lives are business world, and I think that probably one of the biggest things that I pay attention to to that we pay attention to is that technology alone isn't the answer. It's the partnership of human beings and their skill sets and capabilities and data and automation and artificial intelligence and all those things. So I think that I think that it's an incredibly exciting time. It's kind of like, you know, you you go back to the video that we saw this morning in the bit about the Internet, and I don't know if you remember this. I don't know, probably. I don't know how much older I am than you, but, you know, I remember that Internet machine and wow, this is like I could send an email, you know? And then when you think about right how and those comments, You know that Matt Lauer and Katie Couric we're making it like that weren't down comments we didn't didn't know, right? Know the impact Internet could have would have, you know. And so I think the same is true of this kind of technology today. This this next generation of technology. So there's not just one thing I'm interested. I'm interested in Element. >> Gotta keep learning right because way have a hard time with were very linear and everything is growing exponentially. So you got a got to be willing. Teo learned the next thing because it's right around the corner, >> and I think that's so key. That's that's a great rap. I think that people who are happiest today are people who actually love change and who love learning. And I would say I would posit that most that those air not inherently things that people trades that people possess. I'm lucky because I do. You see what I'm saying? I think it's >> an interesting question, whether that's inherent. If there's just people that liked the learning, our curious all the time, and that and then they got to stick in the muds and Candice stick in the muds, change your attitude and become learners again. >> Maybe they won't. I mean, you know, I think that they're I do think that there are are people who are wired to like change and two are curious and who loved learning. And I think there are a whole bunch of people who are not. And I would I truly believe that for success in today's world and moving forward for young people and not so young people, you better get there if that's not your deal, because I don't think that I did it. And I have stumbled across conversations of people having like, you know, that's not gonna happen, you know? So I don't have to worry about it because I'm gonna be outta here by then. Or and you know what? There are a whole bunch of people that have that mindset, and that's a okay, but especially for young people making their way, >> they okay mindset. But it's not the fact that that's the problem. It's it's happening now. I mean, the future is here, and it's happening at a faster pace. Well, Shelley, we could go on and on and on, but we're going to leave it there. And I appreciate you taking a few minutes out of your day. >> Absolutely. My pleasure. >> All right. She Shelly, I'm Jeff. You're watching the Cube. Where? Automation anywhere. Imagine in Midtown Manhattan. Thanks for watching. See you next time.

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of PegaWorld iNspire, brought to you by Pegasystems. >> Hi everybody, this is Dave Vellante and welcome to theCUBE's coverage of PegaWorld iNspire 2020. And now that the dust has settled on the event, we wanted to have a little postmortem power panel, and I'm really excited to have three great guests here today. Adrian Swinscoe is a customer service and experience advisor and the best-selling author of a couple of books: "How to Wow" and "Punk CX." Adrian great to see you, thanks for coming on. >> Hey Dave. >> And Shelly Kramer's a principal, analyst, and a founding partner at Futurum Research, CUBE alum. Shelly, good to see you. >> Hi, great to see you too. >> And finally, Don Schuerman who is the CTO of Pegasystems and one of the people that was really highlighting the keynotes. Don, thanks for your time, appreciate you coming on. >> Great to be here. >> Guys, let's start with some of the takeaways from the event, and if you don't mind I'm going to set it up. I had some, I had many many notes. But I'll take a cue from Alan's keynote, where he talked about three things: rethinking the customer engagement, that whole experience, that as a service, I'm going to say that certainly the second part of last decade came to the front and center and we think is going to continue in spades. And then new tech, we heard about that. Don we're going to ask you to chime in on that. Modern software, microservices, we've got machine intelligence now. And then I thought there were some really good customer examples. We heard from Siemens, we heard from the CIO and head of digital at Aflac, the Bank of Australia. So, some really good customer examples. But Shelly, let me start with you. What were your big takeaways of PegaWorld iNspire 2020, the virtual edition? >> You know, what I love is a focus, and we have talked a lot about that here at Futurum Research, but what I love is the thinking that what really is important now is to think about rethinking and kind of tearing things apart. Especially when we're in a time, we're in difficult economic times, and so instead of focusing on rebuilding and relaunching as quickly as possible, I think that now's the time to really focus on reexamining what is it that our customers want? How is it that we can best serve them? And really sort of start from ground zero and examine our thinking. And I think that's really at the heart of digital transformation, and I think that both in this virtual event and in some interviews I was lucky enough to do in advance with some of the Pega senior team, that was really a key focus, is really thinking about how we can re-architect things, how we can do things in ways that are more efficient, that impact people more effectively, that impact the bottom line more effectively. And to me that's really exciting. >> So Adrian, CX is obviously your wheelhouse. A lot of the conversation at PegaWorld iNspire was of course about customer experience, customer service. How do you think the content went? What were some of the highlights for you? And maybe, what would you have liked to hear more of? >> Well I think, thanks Dave, I actually really enjoyed it. I actually kind of thought was, first of all I should say that I've been to a bunch of virtual summits and I thought this was one of the best ones I've done in terms of its pace and its interactivity. I love the fact that Don was bouncing around the screen, kind of showing us around the menu and things. I thought that was great. But the things that I thought really stood out for me was this idea of the context around accelerating digital transformation. And that's very contextual, it's almost being forced upon us. But then this idea of also the center-out thinking and the Process Fabric. Because it really reminded me of, and Don you can maybe correct me if I'm wrong here, is taking a systems-thinking approach to delivering the right outcomes for customers. Because it's always struck me that there's a contradiction at the heart of the rhetoric around customer-centricity where people say they want to do the right things by customers but then they force them down this channel-centric or process-centric way of thinking. And so actually I thought it was really refreshing to hear about this center-out and Process Fabric platform that Pega's building. And I thought it's really exciting because it felt like actually we're going to start to take a more systemic look and take to delivering great service and great experience. So I thought that was really great. Those were my big headlines out of the summit. >> So Don, one of the-- >> Adrian I think-- >> Go ahead, please. >> Yeah, I think the whole idea, you know, and Alan referred to center-out as a business architecture, and I think that's really an important concept because this is really about the intersection of that business goal. How do I truly become customer-centric? And then how do I actually make my technology do it? And it's really important for that to work where you put your business logic in the technology. If you continue to do it in the sort of channel-centric way or really data-centric, system-centric way that historically has been the approach, I don't think you can build a sustainable platform for great customer engagement. So I think that idea of a business architecture that you clued in on a little bit is really central to how we've been thinking about this. >> Let's stay on that for a second. But first of all, I just want to mention, you guys did a good job of not just trying to take a physical event and plug in into virtual. So congratulations on that. The virtual clicker toss, and you know, you were having some fun eating your eggs. I mean that was, that's great. And the Dropkick Murphys couldn't be live, but you guys still leveraged that, so well done. One of the better ones that I've seen. But I want to stay on your point there. Alan talked about some of the mistakes that are made, and one of the questions I have for you guys is, what is the state of customer experience today, and why the divergence between great, and good, and pretty crappy? And Alan talked about, well, people try to impose business process top-down, or they try to infuse logic in the database bottom-up. You really got to do that middle-out. So, Don I want to come back to you. Let's explore that a little bit. What do you really mean by middle-out? Where am I putting the actual business logic? >> Yeah, I think this is important, right. And I think that a lot of time we have experiences as customers. And I had one of these recently with a cable provider, where I spent a bunch of time on their website chatting with a chatbot of some kind, that then flipped me over to a human. When the chatbot flipped me to the human, the human didn't know what I was doing with the chatbot. And that human eventually told me I had to call somebody. So I picked up the phone, I made the phone call. And that person didn't know what I was doing on chat with the human or with the chatbot. So every time there's a customer, I'm restarting. I'm reexplaining where I am. And that to me is a direct result of that kind of channel-centric thinking, where all of my business logic ends up embedded in, "Well hey, we're going to build a cool chatbot. "And now we're going to build a cool chat system. "And by the way, "we're going to keep our contact centers running." But I'm not thinking holistically about the customer experience. And that's why we think this center-out approach is so important, because I want to go below the channel. And I want to think about that customer journey. What's the outcome I'm trying to get to? In the case of my interaction, I was just trying to increase my bandwidth so that I could do events like this, right? What's that outcome that I'm trying to get to and how do I get the customer to that outcome in a way that's as efficient for the business and as easy for the customer as possible regardless of what channel they're on. And I think that's a little bit of a new way of thinking. And again, it means thinking not just about the customer goal, but having an opinion, whether you are a business leader or an IT person, about where that logic belongs in your architecture. >> So, Adrian. Don just described the sort of bot and human experience, which mimics a lot of the human experience that we've all touched in the past. So, but the customer journey that Don talked about isn't necessarily one journey. There's multiple journeys. So what's your take on how organizations can do better with that kind of service. >> Well I think you're absolutely right, Dave. I mean, actually during the summer I was talking, I was listening to Paul Greenberg talk about the future of customer service. And Paul said something that I think was really straightforward but really insightful. He said, "Look, organizations think about customer journeys "but customers don't think about journeys "in the way that organizations do. "They think discontinuously." So it's like, "I'm going to go to channel one, "and then channel three, and then channel four, "and then channel five, and then back to channel two. "And then back to channel five again." And they expect those conversations to be picked up across those different channels. And so I think what we've got to do is develop, as Don said, build an architecture that is, that works around trying to support the different journeys but allows that flexibility and that adaptability for customers to jump around and to have one of those continuous but disconnected conversations. But it's up to us to try and connect them all, to deliver the service and experience that the customers actually want. >> Now Shelly, a lot of the customer experience actually starts with the employees, and employees don't like when the customer is yelling at them saying, "I just answered all those questions. "Why do I have to answer them again?" So you've, at your firm, you guys have written a lot about this, you've thought a lot about it, you have some data I know you shared on theCUBE one time that 80% of employees are disengaged. And so, that affects the customer experience, doesn't it? >> Yeah it does, you know. And I think that when I'm listening to Don's explanation about his cable company, I'm having flashbacks to what feels like hundreds of my own experiences. And you're just thinking, "This does not have to be this complicated!" You know, ten years ago that same thing that Don just described happened with phone calls. You know, you called one person and they passed you off to somebody else, and they passed you off to somebody else, and you were equally as frustrated as a customer. Now what's happening a lot of times is that we're plugging technology in, like a chat bot, that's supposed to make things better but we're not developing a system and processes throughout our organization, and also change management, what do I want to say, programs within the organization and so we're kind of forgetting all of those things. So what's happening is that we're still having customers having those same experiences that are a decade old, and technology is part of the mix. And it really shouldn't be that way. And so, one thing that I really enjoyed, speaking about employees, was listening to Rich Gilbert from Aflac. And he was talking about when you're moving from legacy processes to new ones, you have to plan for and invest in change management. And we talk about this all the time here at Futurum, you know technology alone is never the answer. It's technology plus people. And so you have to invest in people, you have to invest in their training in order to be able to support and manage change and to drive change. And I think one really important part of that equation is also listening to your employees and getting their feedback, and making them part of the process. Because when they are truly on your front lines, dealing with customers, many times dealing with stressed, upset, frustrated customers, you know, they have a lot of insights. And sometimes we don't bring them into those conversations, certainly early enough in the process to help, to let them help guide us in terms of the solutions and the processes that we put in place. I think that's really important. >> Yeah, a lot of-- >> Shelly, I think-- >> If I may, a lot of the frustration with some employees sometimes is those processes change, and they're unknown going into it. We saw that with COVID, Don. And so, your thoughts on this? >> Yeah, I mean, I think the environment employees are working in is changing rapidly. We've got a customer, a large telecommunications company in the UK where their customer service requests are now being handled by about 4,000 employees pulled from their marketing department working distributed because that's the world that we're in. And the thing I was going to say in response to Shelly is, Alan mentioned in his keynote this idea of design thinking. And one of the reasons why I think that's so important is that it's actually about giving the people on the front lines a voice. It's a format for engaging the employees who actually know the day-to-day experiences of the customers, the day-to-day experiences of a customer service agent, and pulling them into the solution. How do we develop the systems, how do we rethink our processing, how does that need to plug into the various channels that we have? And that's why a lot of our focus is not just on the customer service technology, but the underlying low code platform that allows us to build those processes and those chunks of the customer journey. We often refer to them as "microjourneys" that lead to a specific outcome. And if you're using a low code based platform, something that allows anybody to come in and define that process, you can actually pull employees from the front lines and put them directly on your project teams. And all of a sudden you get better engagement but you also get this incredible insight flowing into what you're doing because you're talking to the people who live this day in and day out. >> Well and when you have-- >> So let's stay on this for a second, if we can. Shelly, go ahead please. >> Sure. When you have a chance to talk with those people, to talk with those front line employees who are having an opportunity to work with low code, no code, they get so excited about it and their jobs are completely, the way they think about their jobs and their contribution to the company, and their contribution to the customer, and the customer experience, is just so wonderful to see. And it's such an easy thing to do, so I think that that's really a critical part of the equation as it relates to success with these programs. >> Yeah, staying close to the customer-- >> Can I jump in? >> Yeah, please Adrian. >> Can I jump in on that a little, a second. I think Shelly, you're absolutely right. I think that it's a really simple thing. You talk about engagement. And one of the key parts of engagement, it seems to me, is that, is giving people a voice and making them feel important and feel heard. And so to go and ask for their opinion and to help them get involved and make a difference to the work that they do, the outcomes that their customers receive, and the overall productivity and efficiency, can only have a positive impact. And it's almost like, it feels self-evident that you'd do that but unfortunately it's not very common. >> Right. It does feel self-evident. But we miss on that front a lot. >> So I want to ask, I'm going to come back to, we talked about people process, we'll come back to that. But I want to talk about the tech. You guys announced, the big announcement was the Pega Process Fabric. You talked about that, Don, as a platform for digital platforms. You've got all these cool microservices and dynamic APIs and being able to compose on the fly, so some pretty cool stuff there. I wonder, with the virtual event, you know, with the physical event you've got the hallway traffic, you talk to people and you get face-to-face reactions. Were you able to get your kind of real-time reactions to the announcement? What was that like? Share with us please. >> Yeah, so, we got well over 1,000 questions in during the event and a lot of them were either about Process Fabric or comments about it. So I think people are definitely excited about this. And when you strip away all of the buzzwords around microservices and cloud, et cetera, I think what we're really getting at here is that work is going to be increasingly more distributed. We are living proof of that right now, the four of us all coming here from different studios. But work is going to be distributed for a bunch of reasons. Because people are more distributed, because organizations increasingly are building customer journeys that aren't just inside their walls, but are connected to the partners and their ecosystem. I'm a bank but I may, as part of my mortgage process, connect somebody up to a home insurer. And all of a sudden the home buying process goes beyond my four walls. And then finally, as you get all of these employees engaged with building their low code apps and being citizen developers, you want to let the 1,000 flowers to bloom but you also need a way to connect that all back together. And Process Fabric is about putting the technology in place to allow us to take these distributed bits of work that we need to do and weave them together into experiences that are coherent for a customer and easy for an employee to navigate. Because I think it's going to be really really important that we do that. And even as we take our systems and break them up into microservices, well customers don't interact with microservices. Customers interact with journeys, with experiences, with the processes you lay out, and making sure we can connect that up together into something that feels easy for the customer and the employee, and gets them to that result they want quickly, that's what the vision of Process Fabric is all about. >> You know, it strikes me, I'm checking my notes here. You guys talked about a couple of examples. One was, I think you talked about the car as sort of a mobility experience, maybe, you know, it makes me wonder with all this AI and autonomous vehicle stuff going on, at what point is owning and driving your own vehicle really going to be not the norm anymore? But you talked about this totally transformed, sorry to use that word, but experience around autos. And certainly financial services is maybe a little bit more near-term. But I wonder Shelly, Futurum, you know, you guys look ahead, how far can we actually go with AI in this realm? >> Well, I think we can go pretty far and I think it'll happen pretty fast. And I think that we're seeing that already in terms of what happened when we had the Coronavirus COVID-19, and of course we're still navigating through that, is that all of a sudden things that we talked about doing, or thought about doing, or planned doing, you know later on in this year or 2021, we had to do all of those things immediately. And so again, it is kind of like ripping the Bandaid off. And we're finding that AI plays a tremendously important role in relieving the workload on the frontline workers, and being able to integrate empathy into decision making. And you know, I go back to, I remember when you all first rolled out the empathy part of your platform, Don, and just watching a demo on that of how you can slide this empathy meter to be warmer, and see in true dollars and cents over time the impact of treating your customers with more empathy, what that delivers to a company. And I think that AI that continues to build and learn and again, what we're having right now, is we're having this gigantic volume of needs, of conversation, of all these transactions that need to happen at once, and great volumes make for better outcomes as it relates to artificial intelligence and how learning can happen more quickly over time. So I think that it's, we're definitely going to see more use of AI more rapidly than we might've seen it before, and I don't think that's going to slow down, at all. Certainly, I mean there's no reason for it to slow down. The benefits are tremendous. The benefits are tremendous, and let me step back and say, following a conversation with Rob Walker on responsible AI, that's a whole different ball of wax. And I think that's something that Pega has really embraced and planted a flag in. So I think that we'll see great things ahead with AI, and I think that we'll see the Pega team really leading as it relates to ethical AI. And I think that's tremendously important as well. >> Well that's the other side of the coin, you know. I asked how far can we go and I guess you're alluding to how far should we go. But Adrian, we also heard about agility and empathy. I mean, I want an empathic service provider. Are agility and empathy related to customer service, and how so? >> Well, David, I think that's a great question. I think that, you talk about agility and talk about empathy, and I think the thing is, what we probably know from our own experience is that being empathetic is sometimes going to be really hard. And it takes time, and it takes practice to actually get better at it. It's almost like a new habit. Some people are naturally better at it than others. But you know, organizationally, I talk about that we need to almost build, almost like an empathetic musculature at an organizational level if we're going to achieve this. And it can be aided by technology, but we, when we develop new muscles it takes time. And sometimes you go through a bit of pain in doing that. So I think that's where the agility comes in, is that we have to test and learn and try new things, be willing to get things wrong and then correct, and then kind of move on. And then learn from these kind of things. And so I think the agility and empathy, it does go hand in hand and it's something that will drive growth and increasing empathetic interactions as we go forward. But I think it's also, just to build on Shelly's point, I think you're absolutely right that Pega has been leading the way in this sort of dimension, in terms of its T-switch and its empathetic advisor. But now the ethical AI testing or the ethical bias testing adds a dimension to that to make sure it's not just about all horsepower, but being able to make sure that you can steer your car. To use your analogy. >> So AI's coming whether we like it or not. Right, Shelly? Go ahead. >> It is. One real quick real world example here is, you know, okay so we have this time when a lot of consumers are furloughed. Out of work. Stressed about finances. And we have a lot of Pega's customers are in the financial services space. Some of the systems that they've established, they've developed over time, the processes they've developed over time is, "Oh, I'm talking with Shelly Kramer and she has a "blah-blah-blah account here. "And this would be a great time to sell her on "this additional service," or whatever. And when you can, so that was our process yesterday. But when you're working with an empathic mindset and you are also needing to be incredibly agile because of current circumstances and situations, your technology, the platform that you're using, can allow you to go, "Okay I'm dealing "with a really stressed customer. "This is not the best time "to offer any additional services." Instead what we need to ask is this series of questions: "How can we help?" Or, "Here are some options." Or whatever. And I think that it's little tweaks like that that can help you in the customer service realm be more agile, be more empathetic, and really deliver an amazing customer experience as a result. And that's the technology. >> If I could just add to that. Alan mentioned in his keynote a specific example, which is Commonwealth Bank of Australia. And they were able, multiple times this year, once during the Australian wildfires and then again in response to the COVID crisis, to completely shift and turn on a dime how they interacted with their customer, and to move from a prioritization of maybe selling things to a prioritization of responding to a customer need. And maybe offering payment deferrals or assistance to a customer. But back to what we were talking about earlier, that agility only happened because they didn't have the logic for that embedded in all their channels. They had it centralized. They had it in a common brain that allowed them to make that change in one place and instantly propagate it to all of the 18 different channels in which they touch their customer. And so, being able to have agility and that empathy, to my mind, is explicitly tied to that concept of a center-out business architecture that Alan was talking about. >> Oh, absolutely. >> And, you know, this leads to discussion about automation, and again, how far can we go, how far should we go? Don, you've been interviewed many many times, like any tech executive, about the impact of AI on jobs. And, you know, the typical response of course is, "No, we want augmentation." But the reality is, machines have always replaced humans it's just, now it's the first time in terms of cognitive function. So it's a little different for us this time around. But it's clear, as I said, AI is coming whether we like it or not. Automation is very clearly on the top of people's minds. So how do you guys see the evolution of automation, the injection of automation into applications, the ubiquity of automations coming in this next decade? Shelly, let's start with you. >> You know, I was thinking you were going to ask Don that question so I'm just listening and listening. (laughing) >> Okay, well we can go with Don, that's-- >> No I'm happy to answer it. It's fine, it just wasn't what I expected. You know, we are really immersed in the automation space. So I very much see the concerns that people on the front line have, that automation is going to replace them. And the reality of it is, if a job that someone does can be automated, it will be automated. It makes sense. It makes good business sense to do that. And I think that what we are looking at from a business agility standpoint, from a business resilience standpoint, from a business survival standpoint, is really how can we deliver most effectively to serve the needs of our customers. Period. And how we can do that quickly and efficiently and without frustration and in a way that is cost effective. All of those things play into what makes a successful business today, as well as what keeps employees, I'm sorry, as well as what keeps customers served, loyal, staying around. I think that we live in a time where customer loyalty is fleeting. And so I think that smart businesses have to look at how do we deepen the relationships that we have with customers? How can we use automation to do that? And the thing about it, you know, I'll go back to the example that Don gave about his cable company that all of us have lived through. It's just like, "Oh my gosh. "There's got to be a better way." So compare that to, and I'm sure all of us can think of an experience where you had to deal with a customer service situation in some way or another, and it was the most awesome thing ever. And you walked away from it and you just went, "Oh my gosh. I know I was talking to a bot here or there." Or, "I know I was doing this, but that solved my problem. "I can't believe it was so easy! "I can't believe it was so easy! "I can't wait to buy something from this company again!" You know what I'm saying? And that's really, I think, the role that automation can play. Is that it can really help deepen existing relationships with our customers, and help us serve them better. And it can also help our employees do things that are more interesting and that are more relevant to the business. And I think that that's important too. So, yes, jobs will go. Yes, automation will slide into places where we've done things manually and repetitive processes before, but I think that's a good thing. >> So, we've got to end it shortly here but I'll give you guys each a last opportunity to chime in. And Adrian, I want to start with you. I invoked the T-word before, transformation, a kind of tongue-in-cheek joking because I know it's not your favorite word. But it is the industry's favorite word. Thinking ahead for the future, we've talked about AI, we've talked about automation, people, process and tech. What do you see as the future state of customer experience, this mix of human and machine? What do we have to look forward to? >> So I think that, first of all, let me tackle the transformation thing. I mean, I remember talking about this with Duncan Macdonald who is the CIO across at UPC, which is one of Pega's customers, on my podcast there the other week. And he talked about, he's the cosponsor of a three year digital transformation program. But then he appended the description of that by saying it's a transformation program that will never end. That's the thing that I think about, because actually, if you think about what we're talking about here, we're not transforming to anything in particular, you know. It's not like going from here to there. And actually, the thing that I think we need to start thinking about is, rather than transformation we actually need to think about an evolution. And adopting an evolutionary state. And we talked about being responsive. We talked about being adaptable. We talked about being agile. We talk about testing and learning and all these different sort of things, that's evolutionary, right? It's not transformational, it's evolutionary. If you think about Charles Darwin and the theory of the species, that's an evolutionary process. And there's a quote, as you've mentioned I authored this book called "Punk CX," there's a quote that I use in the book which is taken from a Bad Religion song called "No Control" and it's called, "There is no vestige of a beginning, "and no prospect of an end." And that quote comes from a 1788 book by James Hutton, which was one of the first treaties on geology, and what he found through all these studies was actually, the formation of the earth and its continuous formation, there is no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end. It's a continuous process. And I think that's what we've got to embrace is that actually change is constant. And as Alan says, you have to build for change and be ready for change. And have the right sort of culture, the right sort of business architecture, the right sort of technology to enable that. Because the world is getting faster and it is getting more competitive. This is probably not the last crisis that we will face. And so, like in most evolutionary things, it wasn't the fittest and the strongest that survived, it was the ones that were most adaptable that survived. And I think that's the kind of thing I want to land on, is actually how, it's the ones that kind of grasp that, grasp that whole concept are the ones that are going to succeed out of this. And, what they will do will be... We can't even imagine what they're going to do right now. >> And, thank you. And Shelly, it's not only responding to, as Adrian was saying, to crisis, but it's also being in a position to very rapidly take advantage of opportunities and that capability is going to be important. You guys are futurists, it's in the name. Your thoughts? >> Well I think that, you know, Adrian's comments were incredibly salient, as always. And I think that-- >> Thank you. >> The thing that this particular crisis that we are navigating through today has in many ways been bad, but in other ways, I think it's been incredibly good. Because it has forced us, in a way that we really haven't had to deal with before, to act quickly, to think quickly, to rethink and to embrace change. Oh, we've got to work from home! Oh, we've got 20 people that need to work from home, we have 20,000 people that need to work from home. What technology do we need? How do we take care of our customers? All of these things we've had to figure out in overdrive. And humans, generally speaking, aren't great at change. But what we are forced to do as a result of this pandemic is change. And rethink everything. And I think that, you know, the point about transformation not being a beginning and an end, we are never, ever, ever done. It is evolutionary and I think that as we look to the future and to one of your comments, we are going faster with more exciting technology solutions out there, with people who are incredibly smart, and so I think that it's exciting and I think that all we are going to see is more and more and more change, and I think it will be a time of great resilience, and we'll see some businesses survive and thrive, and we'll see other businesses not survive. But that's been our norm as well, so I think it's really, I think we have some things to thank this pandemic for. Which is kind of weird, but I also try to be fairly optimistic. But I do, I think we've learned a lot and I think we've seen some really amazing exciting things from businesses who have done this. >> Well thanks for sharing that silver lining, Shelly. And then, Don, I'm going to ask you to bring us to the finish line. And I'm going to close my final question to you, or pose it. You guys had the wrecking ball, and I've certainly observed, when it comes to things like digital transformations, or whatever you want to call it, that there was real complacency, and you showed that cartoon with the wrecking ball saying, "Ehh not in my life, not on my watch. "We're doing fine." Well, this pandemic has clearly changed people's thinking, automation is really top of mind now at executive. So you guys are in a good spot from that standpoint. But your final thoughts, please? >> Yeah, I mean, I want to concur with what Adrian and Shelly said and if I can drop another rock quote in there. This one is from Bob Dylan. And Dylan famously said, "The times they are a changing." But the quote that I keep on my wall is one that he tossed off during an interview where he said, "I accept chaos. "I'm not sure if it accepts me." But I think digital transformation looks a lot less like that butterfly emerging from a cocoon to go off happy to smell the flowers, and looks much more like accepting that we are in a world of constant and unpredictable change. And I think one of the things that the COVID crisis has done is sort of snapped us awake to that world. I was talking to the CIO of a large media company who is one of our customers, and he brought up the fact, you know, like Croom said, "We're all agile now. "I've been talking about five years, "trying to get this company to operate in an agile way, "and all of a sudden we had to do it. "We had no choice, we had to respond, "we had to try new things, we had to fail fast." And my hope is, as we think about what customer engagement and automation and business efficiency looks like in the future, we keep that mindset of trying new things and continuously adapting. Evolving. At the end of the day, our company's brand promise is, "Build for change." And we chose that because we think that that's what organizations, the one thing they can design for. They can design for a future that will continue to change. And if you put the right architecture in place, if you take that center-out mindset, you can support those immediate needs, but set yourself up for a future of continuous change and continuous evolution and adaptation. >> Well guys, I'll quote somebody less famous. Jeff Frick, who said, "The answer to every question "lives somewhere in a CUBE interview." and you guys have given us a lot of answers. I really appreciate your time. I hope that next year at PegaWorld iNspire we can see each other face-to-face and do some live interviews. But really appreciate the insights and all your good work. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> And thank you for watching everybody, this is Dave Vellante and our coverage of PegaWorld iNspire 2020. Be right back, right after this short break. (lighthearted music)