The Cube presents UI Path Forward five. Brought to you by UI Path. >>Hi, everybody went back live at the Venetian, formerly the Sands Convention Center. Dave Ante with David Nicholson. UI. Paths forward five. This is the fourth forward conference that the Cube has done. So we've seen the ascendancy of UI path, the growth customers. UiPath is one of the first companies to actually come back Post Covid. Last year, 2021 at the Bellagio. They took a chance and it actually worked out great at a couple thousand people there. Lots of customers. We're here with Lauren Joyce, who's the global automation lead at Whirlpool. She's joined by Regener Facade rp, who is the global automation lead at Accenture. Good to see you again. Lauren. Welcome to the Cube first timer. Very much, >>Yes, thank >>You. So you're relatively new to automation, but you, as we were talking, you're a process with talk about the center of excellence that you're building out. What's the importance of that to Whirlpool? >>Absolutely. So we are first looking at automation from our finance organization and they were coming to us with, Hey, here are 12 things we wanna automate. And really what we are finding is that not all of these things were suitable for automation. So we've started on the COE journey of, well, how do we make sure that we're getting the most ROI for our business? Starting with discovery, making sure that what we're automating it makes sense, it's the right process versus just an upgrade or, or retooling set. So for us, especially being a global company, making sure that we had that governance in place, that mindset and what should be automated and when really made sense and helped us on our journey pursuing. >>And, and, and I presume that's where Accenture comes in. I mean, rp, you got deep industry expertise, you've got automation expertise. What role do you play in that prioritization exercise? >>So the, the way we approach any automation implementation is similar to what we did here in our pool. First step is, you know, I call it as knowing where you are in the automation journey. Like what always is, if you don't know where you are on a map, a map won't help you. So baselining the current automation maturity and the current journey where they are. And once you do that, you identify you are not star and prioritization and the goals that are required and then you build a plan. And exactly how we approach in establishing a center of excellence that drives the automation with rigor, knowing where you are and where you want to get to, >>What's the team look like in a, in a, who's on the bus, You know, who's who's, who's in in the circle if you will. How do you com you know, build, you've written about this, it's like a sports team. You put it together, you need be a quarterback, you need a lineman, you need, you know, wide receivers who's on the center of excellence team. >>So the way you always build the center of excellence is making sure that your business partners and the senior leadership team is committed to the entire automation journey. That's the key ingredient for success. Then you build, one of the critical aspect is the talent, the quarterback, you said the talent. In today's world, automation talent is just not about knowing, you know, RPA techniques or you know, process optimization, but it is an end to end technology stack starting from cloud to data to analytics and entire platform capabilities of automation that combined and coupled with change management and how do you drive an enterprise chain management is very, very critical in terms of implementing automation. >>Absolutely. Lauren, I'm curious, did, did Accenture bring UI path to Whirlpool or did you bring, or did you bring Accenture in and UI path in together? How, how did that interaction? >>Yes. So we brought Accenture in and they really helped us along with that journey and they brought UI path to us. Our European business was actually using Blue Prism and that's when we said no, we wanna standardize specifically on UI path and make sure from a global standpoint we're using the same tooling. And that really helped that as we were building our team, we leaned on their expertise and then even we're retooling people within our corporation of, hey, we took our SAP lead, our GCP lead to be our technical architect and and people that could help speak the language and translate from process and explain that doesn't have to be a large project and explain what automation is to help drive return investment for sure. >>Now you're early in, but have you seen results, you know so far? Can you talk about that, quantify it in any way or? >>Absolutely. So we started our journey December of 2020. We've automated about 60 or so bots, but really everything that we've done is based on hours saved. So we're at about 60,000 hours automated and with some of our biggest, like our big box stores and our KitchenAid small appliances, we've even had hard dollar savings that we had a bot that went live about in 60 days. We had a $3 million return and take took out 3000 hours of human interaction. That was great for us. >>So the world's kind of a mess right now. You got supply chain issues, you got inflation, you got a recession, you got the United States. Anyway, you got the Fed trying to figure out, oh there's sling shoting, you know, some people are, you know, really hurting stock market is starting to show that there's a lot of confusion out there. The world is changed quite a bit obviously the last few years. How do you guys see it? What role has, I wonder if both of you could answer, what role has automation played in helping like, for instance, Whirlpool with maybe supply chain problems or maybe bigger forecasting and, and what are you seeing across organizations? But Lauren if you could start. >>Absolutely. So for us being able to show improvement in a six to eight week development cycle and instead of saying here's a heavy dollar investment or a new tooling that you gotta get people resources up to speed on, we can take where we are today, automate save hours where we're getting our employee engagement scores of I'm overworked, I have too much on my plate, how can you help me? And automation is there to support and that's really helped our business one take unnecessary work off their plate and show very quick value add to the business without having to have huge dollar investments in our, I'm you trying to save money. >>Are people, what are you seeing in terms of, so some of the problems that people I see as sign out here said, oh, in inflation at five to 7% go after productivity and make it in 20% gains. I mean, what are you seeing in the field? >>More than ever, More than ever, automation is more relevant now given the current economy environment that we are operating. Because automation always free up or optimizers the capacity that every enterprise has. Optimizing capacity is very important so that you can take your talented employees and the talented resources to do more strategic transformation program, which helps to sustain and stay and scale in your business. So I see that automation playing a significant role to impact business imperative. >>What are some of the common misconceptions? I mean we talk a lot about people's fear of automation. You know, I don't think that's necessarily a misconception. I think a lot of times people are fearful about automating though. Maybe they, they shouldn't be. We had Dentsu on today, DS like, you know, this giant global branding firm and they get a lot of young kids, they're like, No, bring it on. I don't want to do all this mundane stuff. But you know, a lot of folks are are are concerned, but, so that maybe is one misconception. Are there others, Lauren, that you found that you can share? >>I think we were lucky that we didn't necessarily have that fear of being replaced by automation. I think our change management plan really helped drive that. We included some fun things of any time a bot went live you got almost like a birth certificate of here's the process we save for you, here's how it's grown over six, six months, 12 months, 18 months. But I'm not sure if we had any other major gaps like that or or pitfalls >>Or, or p anything that, >>So my philosophy is automation is human plus machine combination. You can't run just, you know, people can't think that, you know, if my task get automated, I lose the, I lose my my jobs. That's not how it works because you, you do need human expertise, competency skills to kind of argument what you do with automation. And most important thing when you do this change is that most of the enterprises do not believe, do not understand that you have to get even process, right? You don't want to, you know, have an inefficient process and put automation on the top of it. Then you just made your inefficiency run more faster. So you need to kind of make sure that you address inefficiency, optimize your process, then infuse automation, then have human plus machine capability to strengthen your automation. >>Is it really that easy? Sounds easy, right? It, >>So from an, from an Accenture perspective, if you're, if you're looking at the market as a whole or looking at industry verticals, what's the difference between an organization that is leveraging automation and an organization that is not leveraging organ leveraging automation? Is there, is there sort of a range of percentage of efficiency that you can put on that? What does it mean for their bottom line? >>Essent, you must have data on this. Yeah, I mean what, >>Yeah, >>Today, today's world in the technology world, every organization understands the importance of automation that's given. That's a table stake. Now, where an organization is in the journey differs some of the enterprises maybe at the beginning of the maturity spectrum. In my book I talk about automation maturity framework wherein there are the initial stages of automation. Some of them are intelligent automation at the end of the spectrum where they're using data cloud and AI to drive the automation journey. But in every enterprise, the key success of automation depends upon whether you do automation and enterprisewide not in a silo in the organization, but if you do enterprise wide apply across, you get a lot more benefits, lot more efficiency to drive. >>Does does automation being more strategic or key? Does it, does it in a way make investments in automation more, more scrutinized or more circumspect? I, I would, I would use the term discretionary. We heard Bobby Patrick today say this is not discretionary, it's strategic to me. If it's strategic it might be a mandate but it's might be something I can kick down the road. What are you seeing there in the field just in terms of overall demand and sentiment? >>Automation today, as I said, is a table stake. When it becomes an integrated DNA of enterprise, it is always, you know, whether you want to call one pillar of strategy, key DNA of your strategic roadmap you are in investments have to be directly proportional to what you want to accomplish as your business KPIs to thrive and deliver your business with. Otherwise, if you do it as like a one off thing, you know you won't get the benefit. Yeah. >>Or from your standpoint, where do you want to take the automation initiative inside a whirlpool? How are you thinking about scaling it? What have you learned that you can apply to driving scale? >>So we put some strict governance in place who weren't just automating everything under the sun cuz >>Wild west >>Yeah, I can't support that. Right? So we made sure that everything had at least less than a one year invest return on investment and 500 hours worth of automation for us to even consider it as part of our coe. So because of that, we do have some automations that would make sense, but that's why we're looking at a citizen development program or low code, no code. What other types of options are there to make sure that it does become a part of our culture and dna that you can automate those even small parts of your workflow to, to make your day better. >>When, when you're looking at those workflows, do you, are you, are you literally looking over someone's shoulder with a stopwatch and measuring, Measuring how time >>And motion studies? No >>Question. Yeah. I mean is it time and motion studies? I mean, is that sort of the entry level data that that you use or is it more, or is it more automated than that? >>I would say it's a little more automated than that, but we do sit down and we ask our business process, show me what this process looks like to you. And then from that we can take some task mining and look at, okay, how long did it take you to do this? How often are you doing it? And then based on how long the automation would take, see how many hours are saved and how many people are doing that same task on a monthly, daily, weekly basis. >>Great. All right guys, thanks so much for coming in the cube and sharing your story. A whirlpool and always love to have Accenture on. You guys got such a massive observation space, global depth of industry. So thank you very much both. Thank you. Thank you. You're very welcome. All right, keep it right there. Dave Nicholson and Dave Ante will be back right to the short break, you watching the cubes coverage of UI path forward. Five live from Las Vegas.

>> Good afternoon from Vegas, guys and gals. We're so happy that you're with us. This is theCUBE live at AWS re:Invent '22. This is our third day of coverage. We started Monday night, so we're counting that as day one. Loads of conversations we've had already. We know that you know that 'cause you've been watching. I'm here with Dave Vellante. Dave, great to be here with you with somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 people. And we're excited for our next conversation. We've got two folks joining us who are new to theCUBE, soon will be alumni. Milan Bhatt joins us, the president and head of Cloud at Hexaware. And Nikhil Date, the Director of Engineering and Application Services at Domestic & General. Guys, welcome to the program. >> Thank you >> Thanks for having us. >> So Domestic & General, or D&G, is a customer of Hexaware, but Milan, we want to start with you. Give the audience an overview of Hexaware. What do you do? What's the business model? >> Yeah. So, Hexaware is a technology services company. We are a global partner of AWS, and essentially, we help customers like Domestic & General, you know, accelerate their digital transformation journeys. We like to think of ourselves as a billion dollar startup. And like Amazon, it is always day one at Hexaware. And, you know, I look forward to the conversation, but any company in the world that is looking at cloud-led digital transformation, they have to put Hexaware on the consideration list. Because, you know, not only do we work with a lot of customers, analysts like Gartner, they have rated us as a visionary in helping customers become, you know, digitally enabled, bring better customer experience to their end customers. >> Excellent. Well, we're glad to feature Hexaware on the program. >> Milan: Thank you. >> Nikhil let's bring you into the conversation. Talk to the audience about Domestic & General. What kind of business is it? What's the business model? >> Sure, thank you. So we are, you know, 110-year-old business, right? I mean, we started insuring sheep in Australia, if you believe it, you know, which is quite an origin story. But at the moment, you know, the primary business is keeping our customers world running. So what do I mean by that? We protect in warranty and out-of-warranty care for domestic appliances. You know, TVs, boilers, refrigerators, washing machines, that kind of thing. But we are also a B2B company in the sense that, you know, you might think you are getting a warranty from some of our biggest customers, like Whirlpool or, you know, Bosch, Siemens, or Samsung, but actually it's D&G at the back trying to administer that for you. So, you know, we are in 13 countries. Just launched in the US last year, but big plans. >> So it's really interesting because we all have appliances, and we can relate to, especially, you know pre or post-pandemic, how difficult it is to get service. So you're kind of like, in a way, you've got to build a digital platform like Uber, connecting drivers and passengers, right? And so you've got the supply of individuals who know how to fix stuff, right? And you want to make it as easy as possible for the customer. So was that the genesis of this digital transformation? Can you talk about those business drivers? >> It was, actually, and it's a fantastic point, because trying to become a platform business is what this journey has been all about for us, right? I think, you know, we are a pioneer in what we consider the subscription model. So customers pay a small amount per month as opposed to a big lump sum amount that they have to pay at the point you buy the appliance. And importantly, you can actually buy our product to pay in installments at the point something breaks down. So it's not just something that you buy at the point of sale or at the point you try to register. You can buy it at any time. And the goal really is to have warranty in a box that you can take anywhere, you know, anywhere in the world. So, you know, but it's a great point. Digital transformation is what it is all about. >> And there is a real lack right now of qualified technicians. >> That's right. >> Is there anything within the platform to incent those individuals to participate in your business? >> You know, this is what we consider a multi-tier approach. I think at the moment, the service that we offer is largely top tier, right? So we will get you an engineer that is certified by the manufacturer with the manufacturer warranty. And it's a no fix, no fee model, you know? So, you know, we guarantee either to repair or replace the appliance, you know? That's the model. But you are right, I think in the future stage would be, you know, why wouldn't we want to have anybody who's got the right skills to come in and work off the platform? Absolutely right. >> Nikhil, talk about, you said this is a legacy business, been around for quite some time. You've been there for not quite two years. What drew you to the organization? And where were they in their digital transformation journey? Because I always think legacy companies, this a big challenge, and it's cultural challenge to really transform, but companies these days have no choice. >> Again, a fantastic point, right? I think some of the, you know, 110-year-old business, right? And some of the tech, you would be forgiven for thinking it's that old. But the assets that we had are our people, right? Who are really passionate about the business. And I think what we had to do is to find a partner that can upskill the tech, but also upskill the people at the same time and upskill the delivery model, right? So we've a very traditional left-to-right waterfall, you know, planet first, big upfront planning, and then deliver kind of organization. And by working with a partner such as Hexaware and embracing cloud, because, you know, our first and our go-to will be a SaaS or a cloud provider. And, you know, doing that was the massive agenda that drew me to the company. But I think what is also fair is, you know, digitization or digitalization, is a misunderstood and often abused term, right? Because for the most part, when companies start, and I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but, you know, for the most part, when companies start on this journey, they take a journey that works in the brick and mortar world, and we were a contact center business, and just try to move it to the digital journey, right? It's not a great customer experience. I'll give you an example, right? Now, if you call our agent and say, "Yeah, I'm trying to register an appliance," they will tell you where to look for the serial number. But if you're on a digital channel, you don't know where to look. There's nobody, you know, who can help you. The model number, who remembers the model number of the washing machine they bought, right? I mean, you know, it's stuff like that, you know, which would feel, you know, for a digital native, my son, you know, for example, would think, "How can you even ask a customer for that?" But, you know, it's that change in the model, that's what this is all about. >> Yeah, it's like when you get to go, "What's your account number?" I have no idea what my account number is. So when did this whole project start? How was Hexaware involved? And where did Hexaware start? Like, how did you sort of gauge what the requirement was? Take us through that little- >> Sure. So, you know, when Nikhil and the rest of the management team came in, they came up with a competitive process where, you know, and it is refreshing to remember, I think they've stuck true to their vision. They were very clear that they were not looking for someone who can just digitize their paper processes, but who can help them completely re-imagine, you know, what the new process would look like what the new experience would look like. And, you know, remember, they were running this process at the height of the pandemic, so we couldn't meet anybody in person. We did everything virtual. And we were using cloud technology, but, you know, the way they run the process, they wanted to make sure that a provider brings in a mix of experience and engineering expertise. And that's really hard to find. But equally importantly, you remember those culture sessions that we did? They figured out some very creative ways of making sure that there is a cultural fit. So, for example, they did virtual breakout sessions where, you know, people were sort of asking each other, you know, if you want to have dinner with someone like a celebrity, who would it be? So, you know, these little things to make sure that there is a match and people can actually work. >> Relationship building too. >> The relationship building. It's hard to do in a virtual environment, but it was a competitive process. They looked at us in terms of engineering, you know, experience, our ability to transcend change and run, and, you know, really focus and align to keep their objectives first, right? Work as a true partnership. Do you agree? >> I would agree. And I think, you know, one of the biggest goals here was to make sure that, this is not an arms length vendor relationship, right? You know, this is an extension of our team. So these are our people, you know, for the people that work on D&G, you know, they work in the D&G way, you know, and that means that they can also challenge us, you know, which is quite refreshing, right? People stopping and saying, "Why are you asking me to do this?" You know, it's very refreshing, I think, you know, to work with a partner that is sold on the vision and committed to helping you achieve success. >> That synergy creates that flywheel. And like you said, at D&G, Hexaware, we're a team, we're working together. Nikhil, share with us some of the significant business outcomes that Hexaware services and AWS are helping the company to achieve? Because there's some big numbers there. >> Indeed. Yeah. So, you know, in the digital journey itself, like I said, we are also a B2B business. You know, one of the key challenges is every client wants their own brand, right? So, you know, a journey for customer X has to look like the customer X brand. And our journey for customer Y will have to do the same. You know, when you try to stretch this to a technology problem though, it means that, you know, we were trying to be too many things for too many people, and that slowed things down and increased complexity. So from our point of view, you know, when we started with the digital journey or in the middle of the digital journey, we thought, we need to have a library of reusable components. We need white labeling, right? So there was a root in branch re-engineering of the digital proposition to allow us to, you know, serve multiple clients with the same underlying technology. And that has meant that, you know, in some cases, we are going to market, you know, two, three times faster than what we were. Costs, obviously, you know, 50% cheaper. But, you know, I think the big thing here, and, you know, this is the unstated benefit, is because now there is a common underlying technology innovation that client X wants to do becomes available for client Y. You know, which means that, you know, there's a virtual circle of, you know, constant improvement. So, you know that, from my point of view, that's the big benefit. >> And would you agree that you are still only in the first quarter of a football game? >> Absolutely. >> I think a lot of ambitious plans. So, you know, this is just the beginning. And the way they have built the organization, the way they have driven the culture change, you know, I'm very hopeful for great things to come. >> Paint a picture of the tech. I'm interested in the architecture, and I'm really interested in the data component and how that's affected your business. >> So I mean, you know, multilayered tech architecture, as you can imagine. Then, you know, we still have a legacy, you know, legacy components running off our own PET mainframe, as we like to call it. But, you know, from a forward point of view, what we really want is to allow clients to self-serve, right? Not have to, you know, because at the moment, the only service we can offer is what I call the white glove, right? Which means, you know, somebody has to sit down with us, have a discussion on the requirements, but people should be able to self-serve, you know, look at the catalog of what it is we can do for them and go for it. Data is a very interesting point, right? Because not only are there, you know, geography restrictions around where customer data can go to, obviously, payments and PCI compliance is an issue. But last but not least, you know, some of this data is very, you know, unique to what the clients want to own and manage. And, you know, if you are a, you know, a typical homeowner, you will have appliance from all kinds of manufacturers, right? Many of whom would be our customers. But how much data we can share, because we recognize you as a person, but how much data we can share, there are restrictions. But, you know, building our data abstraction layer allows us to, you know, take care of that. But you're absolutely right, in terms of, But again, the potential for where the data can be mined, because, you know, the engineer also has to be local to where you live. You know, you can't come from 100 miles away. So, you know, the ability to use data to, you know, not just transform our business, but our client's business is phenomenal, you know? >> Do you actually have a mainframe? >> Yes >> We do do. (laughter) >> Adam Selinsky wants to move it into the cloud. (laughter) >> They have every possible technology that you can think of. I mean, 100-year-old business evolved over a period of time. And, you know, if I could add, you know, what has been really impressive about the decision making at D&G is that they have adopted cloud in the right way, right? So they are one of the few customers who have truly taken AWS well architected to heart. They have taken things like, you know, take the right workloads to the cloud and wait to do the right remediations before you take the rest of the workloads to the cloud. They've used native services available on AWS from apps perspective as well as a data perspective. So that's sort of a little bit more color on the technology and architecture. >> But you've essentially SaaSified your business and you basically have D&G cloud that you're delivering to your customers for self-serve. Is that fair? >> That's the vision, yes. The idea is to get there. And, you know, if we assemble what I call, you know, out-the-box solutions in a clever way, then that becomes the platform that we can replicate success on. And at the moment, our business needs what I call boots on the ground. When we are a true platform business, we should be able to operate without having, you know, any presence in country, with the partners leveraging the platform to do what what's next. >> I'm curious, Milan, you said that one of the great things that D&G has done is really adopted cloud in the right way. Do you, Nikhil, think of cloud first or cloud right approach? Because you've got a mainframe, so I'm just wondering if it's more what's right for cloud versus everything cloud first. >> Correct. I mean, I actually, you know, or we actually tend to start even two steps before that, right? I think it's really whether we need to buy or whether we need to build, right? And if we need to buy, then, you know, how easily would that thing that has been bought fit into what is a very complex architecture, as Milan said, right? I mean, any technology you can imagine we probably have it, but we want to simplify it, right? And this is a journey. So which means that, you know, we start with can SaaS product do it? And then we also want to go wherever we are building, then it has to be on the cloud. It has to be designed for scaling. It has to be designed to be in multiple geographies, multiple countries with the relevant data protection baked in. So, you know, that's the decision-thinking process. You know, that the goal is to not, I mean, you know, we had a project started 18 months ago that wanted to buy more tin, but we put a stop to that, right? And saying that, "You know, come on, you can't have that." Not in this day and age, you know, when the cloud can pretty much do everything that you need. >> Do you think of D&G, this is a question for you. We're almost out of time, but I'm just curious, I'm looking at your website, D&G, the experts who repair and replace the household products everyone relies on. Do you think about it as a repair company? Do you think about it as a tech company that delivers these repair services? >> I mean, this is the conversation we have in our teams all the time, right? That when our vision is successful, we will become a tech business. At the moment, I don't think we are, you know? At the moment, I think we are on a journey, you know, because, you know, we are multi-channel, you know, and our customers love us, you know, touch wood. But are we a true tech company? No, but we are getting there, right? I think, you know, that's the plan. >> You're on the journey? >> Yeah. >> Awesome stuff. Last question for each of you, a little bit different. Milan, question for you. You have a billboard or a bumper sticker, whichever, or maybe a sticker for your laptop and it's about Hexaware, and you want to really convey, in a compelling, but really short way, why are we so great? What would that sticker say? >> Awesome. Like I said at the beginning, if you are thinking about a digital transformation, if you are a company that has been around for a long time, you've got to think of us, you know, as a partner. So that's what I would say, because, you know, the purpose of our company is creating smiles through a combination of great people and technology. So that's what we live for. And, you know, brought a smile to me when Nikhil said that our customers love us, and somewhere, we have a small role to play in that. >> I love that. Nikhil, I'm going to ask the same question. I was going to ask you a different one, but I would love to, I mean, we talked a lot about D&G and the incredible business transformation that you've been on. What's that bumper sticker for D&G? What is that bumper sticker for D&G? >> Oh, yeah. Okay. We want keep your world running, right? I mean, you know, from our point of view, you know, you rely on the appliances to keep your home running, and we want you to rely on us to make sure your world keeps running. You know, that's what this is all about. It has to be slick. Touch wood, hopefully, you never have a problem, but if you do, we want to be there, you know, to make sure that your world keeps running. >> I love it. Awesome, guys. Thank you, Milan. Nikhil, thank you so much for joining Dave and me on the program. >> Thank you. I enjoyed the conversation. >> Great partnership. Hexaware, first time on theCUBE, now you're an alumni. You're an alumni too. We appreciate your insights, sharing the story. It's a really compelling story. Thank you. >> And thank you for all the support, Nikhil. >> Of course. >> All right. >> For our guests and for Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live enterprise and emerging tech coverage.