 The Cube presents UiPath Forward 5, brought to you by UiPath. Hi everybody, we're back. David Vellante with David Nicholson. This is UiPath Forward 5 from Las Vegas. We're live. You know, the customers here, they're automating all the time-sucking work in the Cube. We're sucking all the information out of the experts and the customers, Akbar Tobanius here, he's the Global Business Sheared Services leading automation and AI at PepsiCo and Paramp Kalan is back, he's the Chief Product Officer at UiPath, longtime Cube alum. Great to see you guys, thanks for coming on. Great to see you as well, Dave. So you guys keynote today, excited to have PepsiCo on. I'm not sure I've ever interviewed PepsiCo in the Cube, but tell us about your role there. Absolutely, so I'm part of a PepsiCo Global Business Shared Services team. I lead automation and AI capabilities. GBS has, you know, we started GBS portfolio back about three and a half years ago and we have a six hubs across PepsiCo and as a part of my role, we deliver transformational capability across the PepsiCo. When did it all start? About three and a half years ago, 2019. So prior to the pandemic, you know, I says the pandemic was a catalyst for this, but it wasn't the catalyst, but maybe it sped it up a bit. PepsiCo journey started with, if you look at the PepsiCo, you know, the automation journey, it started back in 2017, but the GBS portfolio took shape back in 2019. So prior to that, you know, PepsiCo was definitely, you know, working a lot of, you know, the automation capabilities and automation product across PepsiCo, but with the introduction of PepsiCo Global Business Shared Services team, we are, you know, centralizing a lot of transformation capability, you know, across the functions that we support within the PepsiCo. And UiPath was kind of part of that journey all along, or was there sort of other activities beforehand, or how did that work? No, no, absolutely. Starting from 2017, if I, you know, remembered, you know, with the vision of our, you know, some of our senior leadership team and recognizing the value of, you know, automation and the core capability as a little transformation at that time. You know, we started with just like anybody else, right? We started with, you know, proof of concept, showed some, you know, early wins and the value back to the business, start setting up some, you know, business processes and capabilities, stood up the platform, build a complete, you know, the ecosystem around that, you know, platform partnership with, you know, UiPath team. And, you know, from there, here we are five years. I mean, it's a very critical component to our digital transformation capability. And, yeah, it's leveraged across absolutely. Well, let's talk platform, probably. So you guys have made some announcements this week. You talk about the business automation platform. I remember our first forward was, you know, RPA tool. Okay, and then you guys made acquisitions. I was there for that. So the process, process gold, and then people started to really expand it. And it's really come an amazingly long way in a short time. So what did you guys announce today? What did you talk about on stage 2022.10? Tell us more about it. Absolutely, Dave. So you've seen the journey you've been with us since the early days. You know, we were, in 2017, an RPA tool that could automate a repetitive task that happened over and over again in the environment. And then three years ago, you were here when we announced the automation platform. And we said, it's not just about a task, it's about involving humans and bots to manage end-to-end processes. It's about discovering what automation opportunities exist. It's about using AI. PepsiCo was actually the pioneer of using AI along with automation. You know, we were on stage together with them in 2019. And where we are now is we're essentially seeing people want to take the next step with automation. They're saying that it's no longer just an automation tool. It's the way we operate. It's the way we innovate in the organization. So they're really making sure that it becomes a part of their digital transformation journey that they're on. And they're saying that we can do the digital transformation by consolidating multiple ERP systems and CRM systems. And that'll take us seven years to do. Or we can go with UiPath and we can leverage the core, that we can leverage the GL system that exists today. We can leverage the inventory tracking system that exists today and start to build processes on top of that that can adapt to what customers are trying to do in this digital age. And that's where we've made announcements today, is really pivot the platform to be a business automation platform. And there's sort of three layers, unique but connected layers of the platform. The first one is Discover. And Discover is all about finding your processes, identifying the opportunities, making sure that you are managing the return on investment. What is the process? How are you getting ROI on it? The second one is Automate. And that is really where we're applying semantic automation to identify the digital building blocks of an enterprise, which is your data, your documents, your screens and communication. Like putting all of that together and saying you can automate now processes leveraging a lot of intelligence that exists in how business processes are done. And the last one is Operate, which is if you're trying to execute a business process at scale, you're processing not just a task a thousand times, but you are fulfilling millions of transactions. You're looking at trillions of records to identify what processes. You need a scalable enterprise platform that's able to ingest a lot of data, report on metrics, report on efficiency. So that's what we've announced today is an automation platform that companies can use to put at the center of the digital transformation journey. So Akbar, the interesting thing about PepsiCo, is you guys started in 2017, so kind of early on. And you kind of been there with the progression of the platform. So my question to you is, and we've seen the app from primarily on-prem, now it's cloud-first. How disruptive or non-disruptive was that for you? Did you have to rip and replace? Did you have to sort of retool or migrate? What was that like? No, I mean significant disruption, right? I mean, as we started our journey back in 2017, just like Pram mentioned, with the simple rule-based automation from then now to our journey where our continued to infuse AI capability, document understanding, conversational AI, as a part of our end-to-end workflow. At the same time, I think the cloud is providing a fantastic opportunity for us to continue to scale at large. So that I think is a fantastic platform and fantastic opportunity that we are looking forward to. So how do you affect adoption inside of the organization? Can you talk about that? What's working? It's always value-driven, as you know, right? I mean, the business has to see the value. I would admit it was not as easy as before, but as the mindsets have started to shift, right? As the people have started to realize the value that the automation brings to, you know, not just the value for the business, but actually transforming the entire portfolio, right? And people have started to see now that not every automation project is going to be transformation product, but for every transformation project, you will find the automation at the heart and the core of it. So I think that's what has started to shift the mindset of you know, folks. So how do you know when you have end-to-end? What are the, wake up one day and say, wow, we've achieved it. You know, is it pieces that come together? Yeah. What do you say? Yeah, you know, we want to look at customers from, you know, from an end-to-end perspective. It's not just about piece-mealing, finding a problem, solving it. Really, what does it deliver from an end-to-end perspective? Did you actually, you know, because a lot of times companies will say, we want to automate X number of processes and they do that and they're like, well, we've automated a lot of processes. We're not sure what value we're getting out of it. It's the ability to measure like what impact is this automation having on your business from an operational metric, but from a business metric as well. But then going back and saying, well, where is the biggest pain point? Where do we have the largest value that we can give to the business back? So one of the things we actually announced today is the ability to take and look at an idea and look at what was the estimated benefits of that idea and then map it all the way through execution to say, what are we getting? We estimated we were going to save a million dollars by doing this automation. Or what have we achieved till now? Have we achieved a million dollars? Have we achieved half a million dollars? Why haven't we achieved that? That's new. That never happens. And it's hard to do that. Like the data existed, but it's really hard for people to pull that data out. So we build out the box dashboards that give you the ROI bag. And that's why it's really important to make sure that you look at it not just as a technology project, but more as an investment from a business side. And so you get making a business more efficient. You know, I just, I know you were jumping in, but that's super important because you know, you run a lot of projects. And each of those products has zone ROI. Then you jam it into the application portfolio. And then everybody sort of forgets about it. You can't really track what impact it had because there's always some things that are a benefit, some things are sometimes a negative. And so it's that holistic picture that you try to achieve. Extremely critical point which you've been on, right? It's measuring the benefit and measuring the continuous benefit across and not just from start and end. Okay, what I promised I delivered or not, but you have to have this continuous mindset. And so I think definitely that that's a very, very critical to our finance team and our SQLs. They're organic mechanisms. And you know, it's constantly evident. Yeah, so Akbar, global business shared services. We think of PepsiCo. Of course, people immediately think of Pepsi. But PepsiCo is a multi-tentacled beast of a company in a good way for organizations that are in that same category, holding companies, companies that have all sorts of different entities that are working together under one umbrella. How shareable is this idea of automation and business automation process moving forward? How shareable is that on the shareometer? Yeah, yeah. As far as you're concerned. Are you talking to some people where you're saying, hey, I'm here, I'm here from GBS, I'm here to help. And they look at you like you're crazy because you don't understand their business or is this something that relatively easily applies across businesses? That's not to your point. I mean, very valid point, right? I mean, that's the GBS global business shared services mindset, right? As you move the functional areas into the PepsiCo GBS like HR, procurement, commercial sales, supply chain, right? That's where you're going to start to find those, you know, the optimization, you know, opportunity. You're going to start to standardize your processes. And that's where you will, you know, as you transition these processes within the GBS, that's what creates those opportunities for you. So what about automation opportunities? Not in the, I know you're in the share arena. But each of those business units has processes that could probably be optimized and automated. Is that something that's under your purview? We've heard a lot about citizen developers. I don't know if that applies. No, definitely. I mean, you cannot just have focus on end to end, you know, automation. I mean, that's a huge portfolio for GBS at the same time supporting, you know, automation through the citizen development capability. That's where once again, you know, you have provided a lot of capability and solution tools that we use, right? To continue to empower the folks who are part of our, you know, GBS team inside or outside GBS, right? It's, I think it's very, very critical. It helps people transform their career even in one way, right? And you have that muscle, you have that resource and you have that power. You definitely want to utilize that. So let's talk about metrics for a minute. So more data, the better. Usually I like data, but if you're trying to optimize for 15 metrics, I feel like you're not going to optimize on any. So how do you deal with that from both, as Param was saying, an operational standpoint and a business standpoint? What are the things about, how do you sort of get the teams focused on the right things? Business, functional leadership team drive those alignment for us. As a part of a global business shared services, we are hip to hip connected with our business, you know, functions, right? They have to help us prioritize those. And to your point, I mean, yeah, you cannot attack 15 metrics at once. You have to prioritize, you have to make sure that you bring the focus to the product, you know, project, right? So definitely, I mean, it's not often 15 metrics, but top three metrics, let's focus, let's zoom in and ensure we're driving it. But then if you think about the system, I mean, at the end of the day, the P and L manager, he or she cares about EBIT, let's say. Okay, but there are so many factors, you know, in that complicated organization that are going to affect EBIT. And they're going to be different. But somebody's got to figure out, okay, how do they fit together in a system? And can UiPath help me understand that, those relationships and those dependencies? Absolutely, I mean, I think there's an aspect of human relationships and making sure that you get the right level of sponsorship from the business and there's a business stakeholder in looking at every investment and outcomes that you're driving based on that. But that is something that we, from a tool's perspective, we're trying to make sure that you can measure the value throughout the entire value chain. But then getting the business sponsorship, like where we've seen automation scale, it's all because there's a business sponsor that's essentially saying, here's what I'm trying to achieve and here's my goal, here's a North Star and go get it and let me know how you're tracking against it. And our job is to make sure that we can provide the visibility to people that are operating the programs to make sure they get that level of visibility. What's the scope of automations in your organization? Is it dozens, hundreds? Huge. Yeah, it's thousands. We are getting there. Yeah, okay. No, definitely. I mean, we have definitely realized that it's a core component to our digital transformation, right? So there's no stopping. I mean, there's plenty of support from top down and you know, it's a fantastic time to be at PepsiCo. Especially at PepsiCo GBS, right? All right, thanks for sharing your story. Congratulations on all the progress you guys have made. It's actually quite remarkable to see where you guys have come from. So I really appreciate it. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Dave. Okay, thank you for watching. This is Dave Vellante for Dave Nicholson. We are right in the middle of day two at Forward Five from Las Vegas. We're live and we're right back.