 theCUBE presents UiPath Forward 5, brought to you by UiPath. Hi everybody, welcome back to UiPath Forward 5. You're watching theCUBE's coverage. Everybody here is automating everything. Mundane tasks, enterprise-wide automation, platform, Beats product, Dave Nicholson, Dave Vellante. Girish Pi is here, he's the global head of intelligent enterprise automation at Cognizant. Global SI, good to see you. Thanks for coming to theCUBE. Thank you for having me. Tell us about your role, what are you focused on? So, I lead the enterprise automation practice at Cognizant and we're focused on three broad segments, right? So we help customers anchor to business outcomes. In looking at the business outcomes, what we look to do is help them drive transformation at a process level, looking at it from a technology standpoint and then helping them look at how they're trying to drive change across their entire enterprise and bringing that together and helping them harmonize both at a technology and at a process level in terms of the outcomes they're trying to achieve. So you guys are a partner, I see your booth over there and you're also a customer, right? Yes, we are. So are you involved in both sides, one side, what's your purpose? So we do, so we have a full 360 degree relationship with UiPath. So we work with them in a professional services capacity. They support us as a partnership in the marketplace where we go into a number of our customers jointly to drive turnkey transformational engagements from an automation standpoint and second, as a customer to UiPath, they've been supporting us, you know, drive a number of automation initiatives across our operations book over the course of the last two years. Okay, so tell us more about that. So you started your internal journey. We had you guys on last year. You were just getting started, I think. I think your head count is what, 60,000 somewhere around there, 70,000 now growing. I think at the time it was maybe less than 10% of the workforce was kind of automated and the goal was to automate everybody. How are you guys doing along that? I think it's starting to industrialize quite significantly. So over the course of the last year, since we last spoke to you probably, you know, we've doubled the head count in terms of the number of people that are now, you know, officially what we call quote unquote citizen developers and you know, how they are driving automation at a personal level. We've probably gone about 2.5x in terms of the number of hours we've saved. So we've done about I think 450,000 hours, you know, in terms of actual saves at a personal automation level. And look, it's been a great, you know, last 12 months too, right? Because you know, as we've sort of started to get the message percolated more and more, our teams have started to get energized. They are happy that they are, you know, getting a release in terms of what they're doing on a day-to-day basis which is largely repetitive at times, very mundane. And now they have the ability to bring in technology to be able to embrace that and drive that, you know, much more efficiently. Are you talking dozens of bots, thousands of bots? What's the scope of it? So I think we've scaled to about 3,500 today in terms of the bots. And it's a journey that continues to evolve. For me, the number is probably something which I wouldn't anchor to because it's, look, it's end of the day what you end up releasing and what you end up freeing and what the teams are doing. And I think, you know, that's the way we are leading. So you're saying, like, we always talk about number of bots, but you're saying it's largely an irrelevant metric. Well, if it's five versus a thousand, okay, that's meaningful, right? But... Yeah, I think, look, a number, for me, I think it's not about the number, right? It's about the outcome and it's about what impact you're having in terms of, you know, what you're trying to get done at the end of the day, right? Because ultimately, you're trying to better, you know, what you do on a day-to-day basis and, you know, whether it's done to 10 or whether that's done to 10,000. Yeah, but you get the end for them, right? Exactly. So you better get some value out of it. Exactly, it's about the value. But is there a, is there a curve in terms, you know, an S-curve in terms of scalability, though? I mean, we've heard organizations doing, from organizations doing an amazing amount of modernization and automation and they say they've got 15 bots running. You have 3,500. Is there a number where it becomes harder to manage or is there scalability involved? So look, for me, so let me answer it this way, right? I think there are two aspects to it. I think the more you have, you know, the bigger the challenge in terms of how you run the controls, the governance and the resiliency in terms of, you know, how you manage the setup of the bots itself. So I think, yeah, I mean, we want to have it to a manageable number, but for us, in the way we've looked at the number of bots, one of the things that we've done is we also look at, you know, what's foundational versus what's nuanced in terms of the kind of use cases that you're trying to deliver. So any program of this nature, you need to have a setup which is, you know, which allows you to sort of orchestrate it in the right manner so that as you sort of scale and you bring more people into that equation, you're not just creating bots for the sake of it, but you're actually, you know, trying to look at what you can reuse, what you can orchestrate better. And then in the context of that, figuring out where you have the gaps and then hence, you know, sort of taking the Delta approach of what else and what more you need to build it. So you guys have a big observation space, you work with a lot of customers and so what are you seeing is the trends when you look out there, how are you applying it to your own business and your customers' businesses? So look, for me, I think the last two years, if anything, the one thing I've taken away is that transformation is now extremely, extremely compressed, right? So it's almost, you know, what's true today is probably irrelevant tomorrow, so which means you have to continually evolve in terms of what needs to be done, right? Second is, experiences have become extremely, extremely crucial and critical and experiences of, in my mind, you know, two or three kinds, right? One, the end customer, second from an employee standpoint and third in terms of the partner ecosystem that you will have as an enterprise that you have to cater to, right? The other element that, you know, which will always remain true is the whole outcome story in terms of, you know, how you have to anchor to why you're trying to do what you're trying to do and that is, you know, core to what you need to get done. So in the way we've looked at it, as we've said, you know, as you sort of look at how transformation is now evolving and how compressed it's starting to become, the more you are able to orchestrate for what the enterprise is trying to get done in terms of modernization, in terms of digitization, in terms of end goals and end outcomes that they're trying to achieve and the more you're able to sweat what sits within, you know, the enterprise, bring that together as you think about automation is, you know, where the true value lies in terms of being able to create an agile enterprise. When you think about digital transformation, digital experiences, if it's a layer cake, where is automation in that layer? Is it sort of the bottom of the stack? Is it the whole stack? So for me, it's, I mean, it's evolved. If you take today's view, I think what's emerging is a very pervasive view of how you think about automation. It sits across, you know, the entire enterprise. It takes a people process technology dimension, which is age old. It has to cover, you know, all forms of transformation, you know, whether you're looking at end, how do I say impact in terms of how you're dealing with customers? Whether you're looking at the infrastructure, whether you're looking at the data layer in between, it has to be embedded across the base, right? You have to take a pervasive approach. And for me, I think automation, increasingly in the days ahead, is going to be an enterprise capability. You know, it has to be, you know, all pervasive in the way it needs to be set up. The key, the operative word there is pervasive. And that seems to be, you know, the era that we're entering. I don't know what you call it, call it the metaverse. I mean, you know, it's more than cloud. And cloud is basically just the infrastructure. You're building on top of that, whether it's natural language processing, or cryptography, or virtual reality. I mean, there's so many different, you know, technology dimensions. But the point about pervasive, okay, it's everywhere, it's sensing, it's anticipatory. It feels like there's this new, you know, construct emerging platform that is the basis for digital business. And I feel like every 15 years, our industry goes through some big transformation. How do you see it, you know, do you agree that it feels like, okay, something new is happening. It's not going to be the social media, you know, Facebook's not going to continue to dominate the world as it does. You're already seeing some cracks in that armor. We saw Microsoft after the PC era, and then of course it came back with cloud. Amazon looks, you know, indestructible, but that's never the end story in our world. How do you see that? No, I think all of what you said, I would sort of tend to agree with. For me, look, I don't have a crystal ball to say, you know, what's going to happen with Facebook, or Amazon, or otherwise. Yeah, yeah, but that's what makes this fun. But I think for me, the core is, I think you're dictated by, you know, us as end consumers, if you're a B2B or a B2C, you know, depending upon what business you're in, I think the end customer value dictates, you know, what evolves in terms of, you know, the manifestation of, you know, how you will sort of deliver services, the products that you will get into, and in that context, then, you know, whether you take a TikTok view to it, or whether you take an Amazon view to it, or whether YouTube becomes relevant in the days ahead, I think it's going to be dictated by, you know, by customers, but it tends to be a technology that's the disruptor, right? It's the microprocessor, or it's the social capability, or maybe it's AI, that is the catalyst for that. And then the customer adoption dictates, oh, you're right about that, but the match is usually technology. Is that fair, or not necessarily? Yeah, so look, I mean, you talked about Metaverse earlier, right? Yeah, I think we are, I think we are, it's probably hyped more than it is reality right now, at least in my view, and I think we are significantly out in terms of, you know, large-scale adoption in terms of what needs to be done. You talk about blockchain, blockchain's been around, you know, for at least a decade, if not more, and the way it's been talked about. The adoption, you know, in terms of the applicability of, you know, of what is that technology, I think is understood, but the actual use cases in terms of how it can be taken into the market, and how you can scale it across industries, I think is, you know, it's still... Because the economics determine ultimately the outcome, so okay, that makes sense. Yeah, now, you said you don't have a crystal ball. I have one, but when I look into it, it's sort of murky when I try to figure out the answer to the question, is a platform necessary for this? For automation? I mean, this is really the direction, the question, the existential question, in terms of the trajectory of UI path. It seems obvious that automation is critical. It's not as obvious where that automation is going to end up eventually. Because it's so critical, it feels like it's almost the same as, okay, there's an interface between my keystrokes and filling in a box with text. Well, of course, there has to be. There has to be that interface. So why wouldn't everyone deliver that by default? So as you gaze into my crystal ball with me, tell me about the things that only a platform can do from your perspective. So think of it this way, right? I mean, any enterprise probably has hundreds of technologies that they've invested in, some platform, some applications that you would have built and evolved over time, which are bespoke customer nature. So for me, I think when you think about automation, I think it's the balance between the two. What a platform allows you to do is to be able to orchestrate, given the complexity and the spaghetti that is any enterprise that's probably got the burden of what they've done over the course of the previous years. And then in that context, then, how do you sort of help get the best value out of that in terms of what you want to deliver as the end outcomes, if I can call it that, right? So for me, I don't think you can say it's a platform versus the rest. I think it's always going to be a balance. And to the question that you asked earlier and in terms of saying, where does automation end up at, I think if it's going to be a pervasive view, look, if clients are trying to modernize and get onto the cloud, you can do automation at a cloud level too. Now, do I say then, is it sort of inclusive or it's native to what the cloud providers offer? Or do I then go and say automation needs to be something which I will sort of overlay on top of what the cloud providers offer? So I think it depends upon what dimension that you come at it. So I don't think you can say it's one or the other. You have a platform, I think it helps you orchestrate quite significantly, but there are going to be aspects within any enterprise given the complexity that exists that you will have to balance out platform versus how you have to address it maybe in a more individual capacity. Geras, got to go. Thank you so much. Appreciate your perspective. Thank you. Good conversation. All right, keep it right there, but trains are backing up. We'll be right back right after this short break. theCUBE live at UiPath Forward 5 from Las Vegas.