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Hello and welcome. I'm Lari Numminen and the host of Wonderful Work, a podcast where we hear the voices and insights that make business operations wonderful. In today's episode, we get to hear from Stina Gustavsson has a wealth of experience leading global organizations and strategic partnerships. You'll see that she brings a sadly Swedish optimism to new technology. In today's episode, Stina will demystify the foundations in robotic process automation or RPA for shorts. So, welcome Stina thank you. Thank you for having me here. Thank you. Thank you for having. And I have to say, um, just, just this week I've been listening to, or I've been watching, uh, on you on Netflix, uh, the foundation story of Spotify, a great Swedish tech company, and, and it's full of Swedish optimism to be honest. And that's what we, that's what the sector needs in this kind of time of uncertainty. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's good. So in this podcast, we'd like to get to know our guests as people, as humans. So we start with a few foundational questions. So Stephen, can you tell us something wonderful or surprising that most people just don't know about you? I think this is a quite difficult question. I have to say I'm quite an open person, so I don't know if, if it's so many secrets, um, around me. Uh, but one thing is that I love snow and I think that's something that kind of comes across in my personality sometimes. I mean, I'm born in the north, Sweden, and, and for me snow, I actually tried to, to change my last name when I was a little bit quite. Few years younger than I am today to Snowflake, but I couldn't do that because it was already taken in Swedish. so I mean, for me, snow is something that I really, I love snow and I love the cold as well. It's something that comes across. I don't think I'm a cold person, but it's putting me down to earth and I love to go and just stand outside in the snow, see it snowing, makes me feel, my having my feet on the ground. So that's something. Probably people don't know because I also like to sound and I like to be around people, so that's something that is probably not known about me. Okay. And Fingers Cross will get snow very soon. I think we're, we're just about that time of the year where it's all gonna be magical in the Nordics. Yes. Stina. When you were growing up as a child, what did you wanna become as a, uh, as a grown up? It's actually a funny story around me as well. I, I just found, I, I had been moving from one house to another when you go through your storage and everything you have and you throw things away and so on. And I find the front page article when I was 11 years old where they interview some people, about what they wanted to do. And what he thought about the future and what he wanted to do in the future. And the funny thing was that I said as everybody else, I want to work with humans. I want to work with animals. I want to change the world. Uh, that was exactly the same thing with me, that, that we were free of us that was interviewed. But the thing that kind of differs me from the others was that I said, It's one thing I don't want to do. And that that is to work with, with computers or robots, because really those will, those will take over the world. I'm scared of them, and they will never be humans without a human brain. So for that reason, I will never, ever work with something that has to do with computers or robots. And here I am. And here you are and we're not gonna spoil how, how you got into the world just yet. But, but you as a university, you studied sociology and communication, so it was, you were heading in a different path. Um, how did these kind of, you know, foundations set you up for this kind of technical career in international business? I did, as you said, studies, sociology and journalists and communication actually. But all, all my studies was actually around in culture. Organizations, sociology and things like that. So the culture and international, uh, organization and people have always been to my mind, I kind of like when you, when you have to put people together from different, Different cultures, but also different genders and everything and see how that works and how beneficial it can be if you understand them. That has been throughout my, university degrees and, and studies as well and my interest throughout my life, I would say, um, how it then came into a technology spec that's maybe the most surprising things. If you see where you can do quite a lot of changes, and that has been quite a lot of changes, in my working life has been actually technology. I'm still working a lot with humans in the technology space. I'm working with putting partners, sales organizations together and try understand, uh, the user. Perspective of the products we are doing and robotics process and ai. I'm a little bit still there where I was starting, but of course it has been moving on to the technology sector. Is that, Yeah, it sounds like you're in the technology revolution, but on the side of the human talent and that, that regard, so great to hear that. How did you get into technology, working in technology? Was it something that drew you in or you, was there a story. I mean, it was a coincident of course, that it always usually are when you are in that age. my first job I had was from my journalism communications, sector. And I was working one year with the, Ministry of me Educat in Sweden. And we were, doing a round tour in Sweden to try to figure out what kind of it. Solutions that was then implemented in schools in, and then we actually gathered all those things and show it at the exhibition in Geneva, this international telecom big thing. That was a really, really big thing at that time. And then the Ministry of Education was there. Standing out from Sweden to show the, what we had done because we were quite far ahead, compared to the world at that time. So that was where I started, and then I came into contact with a lot of other companies and I was, I mean, I just came from university. Uh, so I got a job in a company called Unisource, which was the Swedish tale together with the Spanish pity and Italian pity and also, Dutch btt, that was, um, they were starting to, build the wide area network. This was long time ago, but it was, I mean, in the starting point, it hasn't been, it hadn't been done before. So we were actually helping supporting the especially telia than to to sell by the area network, which wasn't possible before. Sounds like I'm a hundred years old when I'm talking now, but not at all. I mean, this is, the pace of technology sometimes feels very fast and very kind of long, wide at the same time. So those changes. I'm sure they, they, they gave you huge, uh, kind of jumping point for your, for your career. Um, Yeah, and it also then when I started in technology, I, I thought it was just tech, of course, as everybody else do. But then I realized when I came into the technology area, uh, that the, the thing that is important is that you do have this human understanding and, and because, I mean, you can't sell on tech. You need to sell on. On the, on the customer and the behavior they have, and they need to understand what you're buying. Otherwise you will not be able to sell it and get it implemented and scale it. So, I mean, it, it didn't take long until I understood that my knowledge and my, my interest was really important in this sector as well. Yeah. And also my interest in understanding the technology, Deep technology, of course, but not in a deep level, has never been. but I, I really like to understand how it could be used. Yeah. And actually let's double down on that. Let's, let's talk about, before we get into the technology, let's talk about change management because the human factor is so important now, you've had an opportunity to work for all kinds of organizations in your career, both the Nordic, companies and organizations, but also global cultures and business. When it comes to change management, in the business context, why is this so important to consider when you're considering automation? I think it is for all new technologies, especially automation Now, as, this is the thing that we are talking about here, because change management, if you don't apply a management structure and thinking when you do, for example, implement automation or want to. Put it into your company, that will not be used because if you don't understand, it's a change because it's a major change because you do affect the organization as such and you affect each of every employee usually when you come in with automation. And that needs to be a change management. Cause you can't just put it in, You don't, you can't. Think that it will be a tool as such and it will not have an effect on the company. You need to understand that, and that's why I think change management is so important because even if it's a technology you implement as such in the company, it's the humans that works in the company that will be affected and need to understand it. They need to understand how this will change the organization and need to understand how it should be used, and also understand what the overall strategy and thoughts is about the change that happens in the. And, when it comes to this change management, have you observed any differences in work cultures when it comes to the attitudes towards automating work? Of course I have. As you know, I started off in Euro path, almost five years ago, and it was, Really the start of RPA when it is really was widely spread from, I mean, these five years, it started from people not knowing what it is to today, that most people at least have heard about it. They might not even know what it is, but have heard about rpa. so I mean it's that, that has changed massively, their attitude. And it has also been, I think what I have seen mostly is that it has moved from being an IT and tech thing. To a business and the C level, interest and decisions sometimes, but interest as well. the interest will come throughout the company and especially when people understand that they can influencing, do things themselves and their voice will be heard, which changes they want to do, and then the leadership understand that this is actually needed and can be a. Business outcome in the end, uh, by doing that. So I think now, now it's much more vitally spread without throughout the companies that it was when, I mean, just four years ago, that it was an IT question. And it kind of, you do have to bring in it the senior leadership, but also the functional, Everybody needs to be involved, so it shouldn't take away it, but I think it's where, where the discussion starts or maybe end up in the before it was actually an IT question that maybe didn't even get out of it, and now it's actually getting out of it and, and the decision can be taken or influenced somewhere else in the. Or even the initiatives for, for automation can come from, from the business side of the, of the company. Before it was always more or less, I would say 95% was an IT initiative. Yeah. And um, would you have any practical advice, let's say, for the business leadership on addressing the culture shift and change towards automation? How do you drive this kind of transformation in your organization? What I think is really important that you understand, this is a, this is something that is a major change for the company. This is something that you need. I mean, you should, you should think about it, how it fits into your strategy, what you can do with automation, how it will be affecting the company, what kind of outcome you want to do, what kind of expectation you want to do, and you should always understand. It's an investment from your side, and I'm not really just thinking about money here. You need to understand that you, it's not just a tool that you implement. You need to put the time and effort and, and money, uh, of course to do so, or coming into one of my key points. You, you need to use a partner that can help you and support you in building this to get the best outcome. On what? on the things that you have been implemented. love that reflection. Um, now you have a really interesting, uh, group of colleagues now they're very international in the extremes. You have American culture and you have finished culture, and I would say Sweden is probably somewhere in between where you have to, to learn to work with best of both worlds. How do you think the Swedish approach, uh, equips you in this environment that you're living in? I, I think it's interesting because, uh, as, as you probably understand how I do love different cultures, different people as well, and how to pull them together to common goal or common interest and, common outcome as well. And I think that Rob Corp, actually, that was one of the major things except for the, for the technology was the company and the people that was there. It's a, it. It's a major, um, employee stack in Finland. Uh, and I love fin uh, I love to work with FIN and I, of course, I feel at home because it's the Nordics, even if it's a different country than Sweden done. Um, but they are really direct. If you, now, this is generalizations, of course, it's different people, but I mean, Finnish people are quite direct compared to Swedish people. They are also taking decisions quite fast, which I do like. But they say what they think. And then you work with a lot of Americans, which the, the second part of the, of the company, uh, is belonging to, which also say what they want, but in different, in a totally different way. And I, I think from a Swedish perspective, being there in the middle, I mean, we are known for being diplomatic. Um, some people say we are slow because everybody needs to be part of a decision. Uh, but I also know that that's a, that's a, sometimes it could be a really good thing because you listen to, to all parts in the discussions and you kind. Put the message out so it's understood by the audience instead of just saying what you would like to, I mean, you know what you would like to, but you just kind of put the message a little bit difference due to the fact that you have an understandable, the way that you're doing it in different countries and cultures. And I think this is something that, from a Swedish perspective, it could be really beneficial in a company with a lot of ins and Americas. From a general, this is a general comment of course, from generalization. We have all people in Rob COR is great. Yeah. And of course, but of course there are different upbringing, different cultures and different ways of doing things as well. And of course that that's kind of those generalizations where you have these different cultures in large businesses. This is not the exception. This is the norm. And you have to have this adaptability to understand how the culture, technology, and then the community work well together. Yeah, and I think it's also, I, I do believe that's not what we have today in Rubber Corp, but. Probably will have as well later on, but I think it's, it's really important that you have defeat on the ground. when you do business in a country, I think you, you can understand to a certain standpoint the culture, but before living there and being up brought there, you can never understand the culture fully. I, I think that's impossible actually. so for that reason, I think it's al always a strength to have at least somebody with the feet on the ground, that lives in the country when you do act or have a business in a country as well. Yeah. Absolutely makes a ton of sense. So let's jump into the meaty topic today. Robotic Process automation, RPA for short. It is probably one of the biggest themes in business operations right now. It's full of innovation, as you said. It's some, it's a topic that's been changing in the last five years and. Rapidly growing in your previous role in UiPath, but also in your current role at robocop. You have been there from the start and you have this kind of unique view of where this merging technology is going. how have you learned to describe RPA to your friends and family? most of my family and friends are not in tech. so I I, I go from the beginning. I. Usually start to try to do it as a human or a task force that do things for you. And I said, RPA is like a help and support. It will help you, support you to do the rep repetitive things that you don't. that you do all the times, maybe don't even think about it. They do that for you so you can concentrate more on the things that you can develop and, that maybe have some more content into it so you will have more time to do what you hopefully and most of the time things, it's more fun. Yeah, and I think that resonates with anyone who time is probably the most valuable asset in the world. It's not money, it's the time that people have. No, I think I actually do things that, that RPA has come from. Of course, return on investments is really important when it comes to RPA and automation. Dependently on who you talk to. But I mean, when I started five years ago, that was the only thing that you were talking. And I think that is one of the major things that I think has changed, that now you can actually see the real output and essence of automation and what more it gives you as a company or a human being. and now that it is really a spotlight in conversation in businesses, who do you think in a business organization should be most interested in rpa? I think everybody should be, but in different ways, and I think they are. I think of course, that, that the C level and the leadership should be really interested due to the fact that it gives you return on investment. That you can measure really. It's quite easy to measure. It, give you the effectiveness of the business you're doing, and the quality, but it also give you a really good customer and employee satisfaction. That should be one of the major in interests of a leadership, I would say, in a company. but of course, if you see middle management, they usually are the ones that, that face the challenge with resources. And for them it's also really important to be able to focus the resources they do have on. On the things that is important for them. So they might, of course return investment is important for them as well, but maybe it's more from a resourcing perspective. And then if you see the people that, the employees that works in the company, they can also be more influential and they can come up with ideas and things to change in the company, and they have a tool that can help them to get. I would say with all the, attended and helping assistant bots, you do have that. You can put up your own on your own processes and ideas to how to automate it to help their own work, but also the groups work, so somebody else work in the company and it will also make them, if they, even if they don't have ID someone to develop it in that sense. they can take part of things that has been done in the company and have more time for doing and develop hopefully what they would like to do and think more and, go a step further with their, with the job they have today, whatever they do. That's a very clear and comprehensive benefit there and, The perspective that I also see is that kind of in business operations, when we're looking at it from the intelligence point of view, we can see that in some functions it's 40% of your work is quite repetitive. It's not necessarily like value adding. It's literally reviews and approvals and copy paste. Now, who wouldn't want to give 40% more time for their team? It's kind of a no-brainer, but the business metrics are very clear as well. And I don't think you are. I don't always think that you are aware of that, that how much of the rep, repetitive things that you are doing before somebody actually. can take it away from you. I mean, then I think you can realize how much time you can free out, but I think it's difficult sometimes, especially if you have done something for a longer time to understand what is something that could be done differently. The benefits are clear. I think it sounds almost too good to be true. Are there some common mistakes or misconceptions that people still have about RPA that you come. Yeah. The, the thing is that I said before, I think I, I pointed it out, is that you can just implement it and let it be there and something will happen. The outcome will happen. I think most companies actually understand that today or take support, from a partner or from the vendor, but I think it's a partner that's much easier because they are agnostic in another way and they can understand a business need in a better way than a software company can. That actually should be more concentrated on the software. But I think some people do an investment. They buy bots, they put them there and then they realize after a year or two that the utilization of the bots hasn't been good. They haven't really reached the outcome that they did expect to do. And they haven't really been following it up and work with it during the time. So I think that's one of the biggest mistake that I have seen. And I have also experienced that, that you think it's easier than it is and you don't really see your own part of the investment in resources time strategy. I'm sure many IT functions are not happy to hear if there's additional effort to maintain, if you can't see that total cost of the package and the total effort that is required for maintaining as well. So it's a good advice there. No, and I think, that's also one thing that I saw when I started off the DoPay. I, saw that it was the ones that we were facing, but it was also the hindrance for our pay, I would say, in a lot of times because they thought it was a, as we said, a bandage on the wounds or, I mean, it's, it's, it shouldn't be there. You should change it from the ground. That's done. But I think that has changed a lot as well, really a lot. and that's something that, that I can see. It's a much more, I shouldn't say acceptance because that's the wrong word, from an. But they can really see the benefits of our pay, in con everything they do Then. They don't really see it just a balance anymore. In our work process, intelligence is what work well does and rpa, which is your level of expertise, they come together in a field called intelligent automation where it's all about kind of understanding how you take business operations and automate them efficiently and in intelligent technology. What are the kind of areas that you think intelligent automation is really driving forward in a business? Do you have any examples of where the opportunity lies? I see it in everything I would say, especially when you see it as a intelligent automation, when you pull things together. I think that is one of the, one of the major thing you will see in the future is the integration between different tools. And I think the understanding of the different things that you could do with something that is the most important. If you don't want to do it today, I think you need to have it in your planning to go forward. but that's some of the responsibility of the software companies and the partners, I would say, to be able to. To tell the companies and to predict the future in a bit so they can have a time for start planning what they need to do. And I think the intelligent automation, I think their pay will be a shit in the middle where you, oh shit in the middle, that's the wrong word for from a English perspective, but It will be the glue in the middle that, that kind of hold everything together, where you will add and integrate with different parts and in process mining as you do work with, or task mining that you, I know that you have as well, but other things. But I think we will see this multi vendor, strategy as well from a risk perspective where the companies actually need to take some. External, if they don't have the knowledge themselves, that is agnostic, that can actually pull all those things together and make the best outcome for that specific company. and also that, that some things can change if needed. from both, from a risk perspective, it's happen something with a company or, from another need or wish from the. So then you don't have to change the whole, solution, you can just change parts that you would like to improve or take away or add. Yeah, I think that's will be more of the things that I will see in the future. But the outcome, it will be, I think it will be a necessary thing to have, to be able to compete in the market going forward. And I think people, employees will expect some automation to be implemented, in the future. Yeah. And it, it's one of these mega trends in business where before there was an assumption that there's a full suite approach where kind of you can do everything in one go and one piece of a stack of software is gonna cure all e os or problems. What we're seeing as well is this ecosystems of very specific, intelligent tools that do specific things but collaborate and align with each other really well. And that's one of the kind of driving directions that you're now taking in your new role. You're working on strategic partnerships. This sounds like an amazing opportunity in the world we are today where technology, is enabling such rapid change. Now tell me what does your typical day look like? what kind of strategic partnerships, uh, what, what are they? As you said, partnership is the most fun thing to do if you ask me, because that's so important, I think for the, both from the customer side and all the organization you're working with, but also from a software company. it is an extension of both the customer and the software company that is needed for both, I would say most of the time. As you do know, I did join Rob Corp. One and a half months ago. So I'm fairly new into Rob Corp. It's such an exciting moment in time. I love every day of it. And, but on the other hand, it's difficult to say what I do day to day with the partnership because one of my major focus at the moment is brand awareness. Of course. I have to say surpr, positively surprising. That has been much easier than I thought when I started Rob Corp. it's easier than it was when I started U UiPath, because Rob Corp is more known, even though they don't know. It's really what we do, but the name itself and the brands is known by most of the big partners and the strategic partners that we do have on our wishlist. So of course I have a list of partners that I think we should cooperate and partnership within the, in, in the future, and today. My daily job is to try to. talk to them, enable the partners on the technology, make them from a business. It's not just technology, enablement, it's also business enablement. Try to understand how Robo Corp will fit into their organization and they need to understand the same thing from their side and also align with jointly customer opportunities. so that's something I do day to day now, and try. to start working on the partner program and try to implement the partner program to make it easy for the partners to work with Rob Corp and make it easy for the customer to understand what kind of offer the partner and Rob Corp can do together jointly for a proposal or an opportunity or also an ongoing. Delivery of course. And, in the field of enterprise software where we're talking about systems that serve large business needs, it partnerships are severely important. how would you describe the role of partnerships for Enterprise software? I wouldn't say it's, I wouldn't even say it's important. I would say it's crucial, now if I use Rob Core, but I can use my former employee, UI path as well, which is much, much bigger company. Without the partnership, we can't really extend, we can't answer to all the requests we do get for sure. We will not have the organization to be able to do so. but on the other hand, we will not have. Extension that we do need on the market. the, I would say that the partners is the extension of it, the company that is not just a partnership without them, we will not be able to grow the way we would like to grow. We will not be able to reach the customers that we would like to reach. We will, we can't say, and we will never have the same relationships, that the major. Partners do you have that has been working with that customer for sometimes 15, 20 years? Not in automation, but in other things. So, I mean, that's a, that's a thing that you can't really, you can't question it. It's, it's crucial. Uh, for, for Rob or, or for a UiPath or for any enterprise software company, I would assume. So I think it's really important and it's really important that we do make it, a partnership because partnership for me is not the sales situation. Partnership is when you do work jointly together. And it should be a clear win-win situation, where we actually see that we can, increase the benefit of what we are doing ourself. And it should be something that is better together than each of us would do. If we go to the market by ourself. So I think that's the thing that I think is the challenge, but also the really fun part of working with partners is that it's finding these really common opportunities, common partnership, finding the win-win situations and how we could actually develop things together, being even better going forward. It sounds like, a very, very smart idea. How about some of the benefits that partnerships can bring to end clients, the actual kind of users of the software? Do you have any kinda reflection? I think we did touch on that one when we were talking about, what we think in the future for automation. I think what partner can, I mean, partner has the, they have the size of the company to start with. They have a professional services organization with consultants that is. especially when we're talking about the strategic customers that are used, huge. They have the expertise in business and different technologies, not the specific software. They have all of them. So they do have expertise in things that, that a software. Company can never have that will bring, something to the customer because they can add automation in things that the customer wouldn't even think of due to their expertise. But they also have the strategy and the way of helping and supporting the strategy going forward for a customer. And they can do that in an agnostic way. If I come in as a software, Partner or, vendor to customer. I'm always having a sales and a customer relationship. I will of course, just talk about my software. I will not give them an, another example of something else. And. I shouldn't anyway, but when you come in with a partner, they can also pick and choose in a totally different way that shoots the customer and they can trust with expertise they do have in different tooling. They can actually trust them to do either a multi vendor solution, but they can also. Choose and pick what we did talk about before. If you see in the business intelligence automation spectra or even the ai, they can actually pull the solution together that shoots the customer in a much better way where, because I think that's where you get to outcome when you do add those different, software. And other tools as well, of course to a full solution. And that's where the partner comes in, because usually the companies doesn't really have these resources to do so and they don't have the expertise. Shouldn't have, because that's not their core business. No. And that's very well reflected oftentimes as well. The partners are very good at stimulating the development of the sector where the vendors get better at servicing the needs of customers when they get that very active feedback of what's really driving need. and one other things that, when you said that as well, the partners can also. Put the put, not put the pressure on the, on the vendors, but they can also add in information that needs to be changed. And then we could change it for the customer and other customers as well, because they can come in with, they can gather much larger, Information stacks that can then, that they can pull back. It's not just one customer say complaining. It's more, it's more, they said, This is not working for this amount of customer or this sector or this industry. And that could also help the customers. To help the vendors of course, and the, and the software vendors. But it also helps the customer in the long run. Yeah, absolutely. With one and a half months in the new role. It may be, early stage to ask, but the new year is coming. 2023 is just around the corner. What are the kind of things that you're seeing are gonna be your priorities for the new year ahead, your first year in the role? Enable as many partners, any qualified partners as. Because I think working with the strategic partners is really important, that it's the right partners as well, that really can be this, that we can really build this partnership with. and of course all partners are equally important. I'm not saying that they are more important, but you need to put a little bit more time and effort into those partners, both because they, Are agnostic. They have all the other tools as well. But in the long run, for a large enterprise, these are the partners that can really help to enlarge and scale those kind of businesses. Yeah. so for me it will be, my main focus will be of course, to, Be there talking to them. So they trust me and trust Rob Corp as a partner. But the second thing is to enable them from a technically perspective and a commercial perspective. Or when I say commercial, it's more to understand the pricing models, understanding the. The specific things that Rob Core has that differs from other RPA tools and that could be also developed. So you can talk about Rob Core into your opportunities in business and also of course, What else will I do? I will do joint opportunities. That's the main things. That's where we want to come. That's something I will focus quite a lot on. I will probably put aside enablement and everything if I need to, if they have a lot of, you need to have that. Cause otherwise the joint opportunities will not be good. But everything come to, to be able to work on opportunities together and successfully deliver. Automation to the customers. That's something that I will do together with those strategic partners that we have decided to work with jointly. And that sounds like an exciting, mission to head towards as you head in new thing you can do. I love it. Yeah, Absolutely. Now Robic Corp, I think you mentioned that it has a good awareness already. It has to be part of the marketing because it's a really cool name. You have a company mascot that's a funky monkey. I see a lot of your content everywhere. but to, can you just describe what is it that Robo Corp does differently from other vendors in the rpa? Rob Corp is, is actually coming across as the gen two. R Pay vendor. I would say that the are, I can't prove it, but I think, and it's actually I have seen it as well, is the leading, Gen two RPA vendor. Gen two is something that you do say whatever you talk about, but what does it mean in this content? I Robo Corp is actually building on the open source. Framework or platform, they have put a robotic framework on the top and then they have a orchestration that managed the door pay and delivered that to the customer. As a gen two, you never have to do the mistakes the gen one has done. You can skip those things, so you start from a different, different perspective. You don't have to do those mistakes and you don't have to do those investments. Of course, that those mistakes is given. They have based everything on Python, which is a language as you do know that is, is really common. And it's easy to integrate everything onto that one, which makes it's really flexible and really easy to use. that's also what I have done and one of the other things. I would say that we, that Robo Corp is doing really good is that they have implemented consumption based pricing and that doesn't It means that you pay for what you use, but it also means that you can be assure that Robo Corp. Will not sit back and be fat and happy when something has been, when you have signed a contract. Because for us to really gain any value is when the customers is using. For us it's really important to make sure that the utilization and the business outcome is coming and that we push data, scale it forward together, other. It will not give us anything and it will not give the customer, but it's a share risk that is really beneficial when you do talk to and customers. And also the speed of automation is something that is really something that differs, Gen one, vendor because you can actually deploy. Much. you can deploy a lot of bots for something that you want to do in a short time and it doesn't cost more. we don't have any license model as such, so you don't have to buy licenses for. 400 robots to do something that you would do in maybe two month. Then you do just deploy, robots for two month and then you can take hundred, but you don't use them for a really short time. And the cost in the end will be the same as if you, you can do much more in that short time than you would do if you had, licenses that you had to apply. So all these things is something that has been asked for a long time and hasn't been able to be sold in an easy way from the traditional Gen one operators that now it's actually something that could be done from the beginning with the gen two. And that was one of the reason for me joining Robo Corp as well. This is something that I've been waiting for happening and I really do believe in the way that, that Robo Corpus is, is actually going into the market as well. Yeah. And, and the product that, that they are, that we are actually having started to promote on the market now. And I can imagine that you've really seen the journey of RPA from the early days to this kind of, okay, this is a, a good pilot to try and now you're talking about generation two, and it has all the learnings come along the way from the last few years. Is this now mainstream? Is this still new from the companies that you talk to? Or is this this something that is like, Uh, ready for enterprise. It's not mainstream. I wouldn't use that word today. It will be, I can't say when, but it's, it might be in two to three years. It could be five years, it could be 10, but it will be there. but it's known and it's used by most of the enterprise customers anyway, in some way. I think, Do know the word. They do understand a little bit what it is and it's used in most companies at the moment. But I wouldn't say it's mainstream because I think it could be used in so many more ways and needs to be, to be mainstream. And imagine you're in the and will be. Yeah. Imagine you're, you're in the shoes of, uh, a process leader, operational excellence leader in a large company. Where do you see the RPAs heading for the next five years? Where are the big opportunities up? It depends where you start from, I would say in that, in that company. But I think, I think data to, to kind of cons, consolidate data and work with data that you do have. I think that's where some, somewhere where you go, but it will go from. As we did mention in the beginning, I think it will not be r pay as, as a so thing that you have, you need to have some process mining to understand the processes you need to have task mining to, be, you have to have the whole saying. I think that's where you do have the main, I mean, I don't know if it's a, you said a process leader. I'm not sure if that, but that's come from to them as well. I mean that could come from the whole company and a process leader, I think to underst. How everything fits together and, and what kind of really good output you can do. Because if you use just our pay without really understanding from a process mining perspective, what would you really do with the process? you can have some benefits with our pay. Of course you can, but not the full picture. And I think that's where we will see, the main thing happening. It's the integration between different tools for a fuller solution, if you would like to say that. and I think that's what process leader and companies will start using. More commonly they wouldn't think that they could take away one or another. They will actually pull them together to get the whole benefit from Yeah, from the ecosystem. And that is really well said. I can imagine that this intelligent enterprise, it's not just enabled by one visionary, but it's the combination of these different tools and approaches that just complement each other and, and just smarter ways of, of running business than we have. Yeah, and it's not just to solving a, a challenge or a problem here. It's more put into the strategy of the whole company and to be part of the future of the company instead of just solving a problem they see in front of them. I think that's where you see the change as well. It's more into the, to the strategy. Of the future of the company. Yeah. we're getting to the fantastic discussion we're getting to the end of here where, if people wanna look into the future and follow your vision, what are the kind of resources you would recommend listeners to follow? resources from knowledge or respo resources from. I think from your perspective, if you were looking at the future of RPA and where the things are headed, from your perspective, is there something from Robo Corp or, or from the community that you think is really, should be on the reading list of everyone listening? It shouldn't just be it should be something that specifically have the responsibility to look into those findings and being the single point of focal point of contact into a company. in some, I I don't know if it's going to be a function, it probably should be a function going further. But it needs to be some expertise that do have the, a tool to take decision, but also concentrating and understanding the use of. Automation or ai. I think they could be mixed together. I do not think, and that's not just because I'm working with partners, but I do think that it might not be that companies will do everything themselves. I think they, in the same way as, as the tooling, I think it will be more multi vendor way of looking into these kind of softwares. I think companies also will focus on the. core business and do use partners to help them, support them, not just in the strategy, but maybe work with them also for the governance and the way to, to implement it and run everything. To invest in knowledge. I think that is something that is wise to start doing now and make those people have time to do it as well. They don't have time. They have so many things on their schedule for that role. So it's not really taken, I think they take it when it comes usually. I think it should be more incorporated into the, to the business, everyday work and understanding of the full strategy of the company. Absolutely. And, it's been a true joy, Stina, listening to your advice. I can't wait to see what happens in your new journey, strategy. partnerships are hugely important and being generous with the knowledge that you learn is gonna be exciting to catch up, later and see the path you're on and what, where we take in the next five years. Now it's time to. So Wonderful work is, produced by Work Fellow. We're a new software company that saves smart people from doll repetitive work through a solution called Process Intelligence. Go to work, fellow ai, when you're ready to tune up your business processes and remember everyone, stay wonderful.
Hello and welcome. I'm Lari Numminen and the host of Wonderful Work, a podcast where we hear the voices and insights that make business operations wonderful. In today's episode, we get to hear from Stina Gustavsson has a wealth of experience leading global organizations and strategic partnerships. You'll see that she brings a sadly Swedish optimism to new technology. In today's episode, Stina will demystify the foundations in robotic process automation or RPA for shorts. So, welcome Stina thank you. Thank you for having me here. Thank you. Thank you for having. And I have to say, um, just, just this week I've been listening to, or I've been watching, uh, on you on Netflix, uh, the foundation story of Spotify, a great Swedish tech company, and, and it's full of Swedish optimism to be honest. And that's what we, that's what the sector needs in this kind of time of uncertainty. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's good. So in this podcast, we'd like to get to know our guests as people, as humans. So we start with a few foundational questions. So Stephen, can you tell us something wonderful or surprising that most people just don't know about you? I think this is a quite difficult question. I have to say I'm quite an open person, so I don't know if, if it's so many secrets, um, around me. Uh, but one thing is that I love snow and I think that's something that kind of comes across in my personality sometimes. I mean, I'm born in the north, Sweden, and, and for me snow, I actually tried to, to change my last name when I was a little bit quite. Few years younger than I am today to Snowflake, but I couldn't do that because it was already taken in Swedish. so I mean, for me, snow is something that I really, I love snow and I love the cold as well. It's something that comes across. I don't think I'm a cold person, but it's putting me down to earth and I love to go and just stand outside in the snow, see it snowing, makes me feel, my having my feet on the ground. So that's something. Probably people don't know because I also like to sound and I like to be around people, so that's something that is probably not known about me. Okay. And Fingers Cross will get snow very soon. I think we're, we're just about that time of the year where it's all gonna be magical in the Nordics. Yes. Stina. When you were growing up as a child, what did you wanna become as a, uh, as a grown up? It's actually a funny story around me as well. I, I just found, I, I had been moving from one house to another when you go through your storage and everything you have and you throw things away and so on. And I find the front page article when I was 11 years old where they interview some people, about what they wanted to do. And what he thought about the future and what he wanted to do in the future. And the funny thing was that I said as everybody else, I want to work with humans. I want to work with animals. I want to change the world. Uh, that was exactly the same thing with me, that, that we were free of us that was interviewed. But the thing that kind of differs me from the others was that I said, It's one thing I don't want to do. And that that is to work with, with computers or robots, because really those will, those will take over the world. I'm scared of them, and they will never be humans without a human brain. So for that reason, I will never, ever work with something that has to do with computers or robots. And here I am. And here you are and we're not gonna spoil how, how you got into the world just yet. But, but you as a university, you studied sociology and communication, so it was, you were heading in a different path. Um, how did these kind of, you know, foundations set you up for this kind of technical career in international business? I did, as you said, studies, sociology and journalists and communication actually. But all, all my studies was actually around in culture. Organizations, sociology and things like that. So the culture and international, uh, organization and people have always been to my mind, I kind of like when you, when you have to put people together from different, Different cultures, but also different genders and everything and see how that works and how beneficial it can be if you understand them. That has been throughout my, university degrees and, and studies as well and my interest throughout my life, I would say, um, how it then came into a technology spec that's maybe the most surprising things. If you see where you can do quite a lot of changes, and that has been quite a lot of changes, in my working life has been actually technology. I'm still working a lot with humans in the technology space. I'm working with putting partners, sales organizations together and try understand, uh, the user. Perspective of the products we are doing and robotics process and ai. I'm a little bit still there where I was starting, but of course it has been moving on to the technology sector. Is that, Yeah, it sounds like you're in the technology revolution, but on the side of the human talent and that, that regard, so great to hear that. How did you get into technology, working in technology? Was it something that drew you in or you, was there a story. I mean, it was a coincident of course, that it always usually are when you are in that age. my first job I had was from my journalism communications, sector. And I was working one year with the, Ministry of me Educat in Sweden. And we were, doing a round tour in Sweden to try to figure out what kind of it. Solutions that was then implemented in schools in, and then we actually gathered all those things and show it at the exhibition in Geneva, this international telecom big thing. That was a really, really big thing at that time. And then the Ministry of Education was there. Standing out from Sweden to show the, what we had done because we were quite far ahead, compared to the world at that time. So that was where I started, and then I came into contact with a lot of other companies and I was, I mean, I just came from university. Uh, so I got a job in a company called Unisource, which was the Swedish tale together with the Spanish pity and Italian pity and also, Dutch btt, that was, um, they were starting to, build the wide area network. This was long time ago, but it was, I mean, in the starting point, it hasn't been, it hadn't been done before. So we were actually helping supporting the especially telia than to to sell by the area network, which wasn't possible before. Sounds like I'm a hundred years old when I'm talking now, but not at all. I mean, this is, the pace of technology sometimes feels very fast and very kind of long, wide at the same time. So those changes. I'm sure they, they, they gave you huge, uh, kind of jumping point for your, for your career. Um, Yeah, and it also then when I started in technology, I, I thought it was just tech, of course, as everybody else do. But then I realized when I came into the technology area, uh, that the, the thing that is important is that you do have this human understanding and, and because, I mean, you can't sell on tech. You need to sell on. On the, on the customer and the behavior they have, and they need to understand what you're buying. Otherwise you will not be able to sell it and get it implemented and scale it. So, I mean, it, it didn't take long until I understood that my knowledge and my, my interest was really important in this sector as well. Yeah. And also my interest in understanding the technology, Deep technology, of course, but not in a deep level, has never been. but I, I really like to understand how it could be used. Yeah. And actually let's double down on that. Let's, let's talk about, before we get into the technology, let's talk about change management because the human factor is so important now, you've had an opportunity to work for all kinds of organizations in your career, both the Nordic, companies and organizations, but also global cultures and business. When it comes to change management, in the business context, why is this so important to consider when you're considering automation? I think it is for all new technologies, especially automation Now, as, this is the thing that we are talking about here, because change management, if you don't apply a management structure and thinking when you do, for example, implement automation or want to. Put it into your company, that will not be used because if you don't understand, it's a change because it's a major change because you do affect the organization as such and you affect each of every employee usually when you come in with automation. And that needs to be a change management. Cause you can't just put it in, You don't, you can't. Think that it will be a tool as such and it will not have an effect on the company. You need to understand that, and that's why I think change management is so important because even if it's a technology you implement as such in the company, it's the humans that works in the company that will be affected and need to understand it. They need to understand how this will change the organization and need to understand how it should be used, and also understand what the overall strategy and thoughts is about the change that happens in the. And, when it comes to this change management, have you observed any differences in work cultures when it comes to the attitudes towards automating work? Of course I have. As you know, I started off in Euro path, almost five years ago, and it was, Really the start of RPA when it is really was widely spread from, I mean, these five years, it started from people not knowing what it is to today, that most people at least have heard about it. They might not even know what it is, but have heard about rpa. so I mean it's that, that has changed massively, their attitude. And it has also been, I think what I have seen mostly is that it has moved from being an IT and tech thing. To a business and the C level, interest and decisions sometimes, but interest as well. the interest will come throughout the company and especially when people understand that they can influencing, do things themselves and their voice will be heard, which changes they want to do, and then the leadership understand that this is actually needed and can be a. Business outcome in the end, uh, by doing that. So I think now, now it's much more vitally spread without throughout the companies that it was when, I mean, just four years ago, that it was an IT question. And it kind of, you do have to bring in it the senior leadership, but also the functional, Everybody needs to be involved, so it shouldn't take away it, but I think it's where, where the discussion starts or maybe end up in the before it was actually an IT question that maybe didn't even get out of it, and now it's actually getting out of it and, and the decision can be taken or influenced somewhere else in the. Or even the initiatives for, for automation can come from, from the business side of the, of the company. Before it was always more or less, I would say 95% was an IT initiative. Yeah. And um, would you have any practical advice, let's say, for the business leadership on addressing the culture shift and change towards automation? How do you drive this kind of transformation in your organization? What I think is really important that you understand, this is a, this is something that is a major change for the company. This is something that you need. I mean, you should, you should think about it, how it fits into your strategy, what you can do with automation, how it will be affecting the company, what kind of outcome you want to do, what kind of expectation you want to do, and you should always understand. It's an investment from your side, and I'm not really just thinking about money here. You need to understand that you, it's not just a tool that you implement. You need to put the time and effort and, and money, uh, of course to do so, or coming into one of my key points. You, you need to use a partner that can help you and support you in building this to get the best outcome. On what? on the things that you have been implemented. love that reflection. Um, now you have a really interesting, uh, group of colleagues now they're very international in the extremes. You have American culture and you have finished culture, and I would say Sweden is probably somewhere in between where you have to, to learn to work with best of both worlds. How do you think the Swedish approach, uh, equips you in this environment that you're living in? I, I think it's interesting because, uh, as, as you probably understand how I do love different cultures, different people as well, and how to pull them together to common goal or common interest and, common outcome as well. And I think that Rob Corp, actually, that was one of the major things except for the, for the technology was the company and the people that was there. It's a, it. It's a major, um, employee stack in Finland. Uh, and I love fin uh, I love to work with FIN and I, of course, I feel at home because it's the Nordics, even if it's a different country than Sweden done. Um, but they are really direct. If you, now, this is generalizations, of course, it's different people, but I mean, Finnish people are quite direct compared to Swedish people. They are also taking decisions quite fast, which I do like. But they say what they think. And then you work with a lot of Americans, which the, the second part of the, of the company, uh, is belonging to, which also say what they want, but in different, in a totally different way. And I, I think from a Swedish perspective, being there in the middle, I mean, we are known for being diplomatic. Um, some people say we are slow because everybody needs to be part of a decision. Uh, but I also know that that's a, that's a, sometimes it could be a really good thing because you listen to, to all parts in the discussions and you kind. Put the message out so it's understood by the audience instead of just saying what you would like to, I mean, you know what you would like to, but you just kind of put the message a little bit difference due to the fact that you have an understandable, the way that you're doing it in different countries and cultures. And I think this is something that, from a Swedish perspective, it could be really beneficial in a company with a lot of ins and Americas. From a general, this is a general comment of course, from generalization. We have all people in Rob COR is great. Yeah. And of course, but of course there are different upbringing, different cultures and different ways of doing things as well. And of course that that's kind of those generalizations where you have these different cultures in large businesses. This is not the exception. This is the norm. And you have to have this adaptability to understand how the culture, technology, and then the community work well together. Yeah, and I think it's also, I, I do believe that's not what we have today in Rubber Corp, but. Probably will have as well later on, but I think it's, it's really important that you have defeat on the ground. when you do business in a country, I think you, you can understand to a certain standpoint the culture, but before living there and being up brought there, you can never understand the culture fully. I, I think that's impossible actually. so for that reason, I think it's al always a strength to have at least somebody with the feet on the ground, that lives in the country when you do act or have a business in a country as well. Yeah. Absolutely makes a ton of sense. So let's jump into the meaty topic today. Robotic Process automation, RPA for short. It is probably one of the biggest themes in business operations right now. It's full of innovation, as you said. It's some, it's a topic that's been changing in the last five years and. Rapidly growing in your previous role in UiPath, but also in your current role at robocop. You have been there from the start and you have this kind of unique view of where this merging technology is going. how have you learned to describe RPA to your friends and family? most of my family and friends are not in tech. so I I, I go from the beginning. I. Usually start to try to do it as a human or a task force that do things for you. And I said, RPA is like a help and support. It will help you, support you to do the rep repetitive things that you don't. that you do all the times, maybe don't even think about it. They do that for you so you can concentrate more on the things that you can develop and, that maybe have some more content into it so you will have more time to do what you hopefully and most of the time things, it's more fun. Yeah, and I think that resonates with anyone who time is probably the most valuable asset in the world. It's not money, it's the time that people have. No, I think I actually do things that, that RPA has come from. Of course, return on investments is really important when it comes to RPA and automation. Dependently on who you talk to. But I mean, when I started five years ago, that was the only thing that you were talking. And I think that is one of the major things that I think has changed, that now you can actually see the real output and essence of automation and what more it gives you as a company or a human being. and now that it is really a spotlight in conversation in businesses, who do you think in a business organization should be most interested in rpa? I think everybody should be, but in different ways, and I think they are. I think of course, that, that the C level and the leadership should be really interested due to the fact that it gives you return on investment. That you can measure really. It's quite easy to measure. It, give you the effectiveness of the business you're doing, and the quality, but it also give you a really good customer and employee satisfaction. That should be one of the major in interests of a leadership, I would say, in a company. but of course, if you see middle management, they usually are the ones that, that face the challenge with resources. And for them it's also really important to be able to focus the resources they do have on. On the things that is important for them. So they might, of course return investment is important for them as well, but maybe it's more from a resourcing perspective. And then if you see the people that, the employees that works in the company, they can also be more influential and they can come up with ideas and things to change in the company, and they have a tool that can help them to get. I would say with all the, attended and helping assistant bots, you do have that. You can put up your own on your own processes and ideas to how to automate it to help their own work, but also the groups work, so somebody else work in the company and it will also make them, if they, even if they don't have ID someone to develop it in that sense. they can take part of things that has been done in the company and have more time for doing and develop hopefully what they would like to do and think more and, go a step further with their, with the job they have today, whatever they do. That's a very clear and comprehensive benefit there and, The perspective that I also see is that kind of in business operations, when we're looking at it from the intelligence point of view, we can see that in some functions it's 40% of your work is quite repetitive. It's not necessarily like value adding. It's literally reviews and approvals and copy paste. Now, who wouldn't want to give 40% more time for their team? It's kind of a no-brainer, but the business metrics are very clear as well. And I don't think you are. I don't always think that you are aware of that, that how much of the rep, repetitive things that you are doing before somebody actually. can take it away from you. I mean, then I think you can realize how much time you can free out, but I think it's difficult sometimes, especially if you have done something for a longer time to understand what is something that could be done differently. The benefits are clear. I think it sounds almost too good to be true. Are there some common mistakes or misconceptions that people still have about RPA that you come. Yeah. The, the thing is that I said before, I think I, I pointed it out, is that you can just implement it and let it be there and something will happen. The outcome will happen. I think most companies actually understand that today or take support, from a partner or from the vendor, but I think it's a partner that's much easier because they are agnostic in another way and they can understand a business need in a better way than a software company can. That actually should be more concentrated on the software. But I think some people do an investment. They buy bots, they put them there and then they realize after a year or two that the utilization of the bots hasn't been good. They haven't really reached the outcome that they did expect to do. And they haven't really been following it up and work with it during the time. So I think that's one of the biggest mistake that I have seen. And I have also experienced that, that you think it's easier than it is and you don't really see your own part of the investment in resources time strategy. I'm sure many IT functions are not happy to hear if there's additional effort to maintain, if you can't see that total cost of the package and the total effort that is required for maintaining as well. So it's a good advice there. No, and I think, that's also one thing that I saw when I started off the DoPay. I, saw that it was the ones that we were facing, but it was also the hindrance for our pay, I would say, in a lot of times because they thought it was a, as we said, a bandage on the wounds or, I mean, it's, it's, it shouldn't be there. You should change it from the ground. That's done. But I think that has changed a lot as well, really a lot. and that's something that, that I can see. It's a much more, I shouldn't say acceptance because that's the wrong word, from an. But they can really see the benefits of our pay, in con everything they do Then. They don't really see it just a balance anymore. In our work process, intelligence is what work well does and rpa, which is your level of expertise, they come together in a field called intelligent automation where it's all about kind of understanding how you take business operations and automate them efficiently and in intelligent technology. What are the kind of areas that you think intelligent automation is really driving forward in a business? Do you have any examples of where the opportunity lies? I see it in everything I would say, especially when you see it as a intelligent automation, when you pull things together. I think that is one of the, one of the major thing you will see in the future is the integration between different tools. And I think the understanding of the different things that you could do with something that is the most important. If you don't want to do it today, I think you need to have it in your planning to go forward. but that's some of the responsibility of the software companies and the partners, I would say, to be able to. To tell the companies and to predict the future in a bit so they can have a time for start planning what they need to do. And I think the intelligent automation, I think their pay will be a shit in the middle where you, oh shit in the middle, that's the wrong word for from a English perspective, but It will be the glue in the middle that, that kind of hold everything together, where you will add and integrate with different parts and in process mining as you do work with, or task mining that you, I know that you have as well, but other things. But I think we will see this multi vendor, strategy as well from a risk perspective where the companies actually need to take some. External, if they don't have the knowledge themselves, that is agnostic, that can actually pull all those things together and make the best outcome for that specific company. and also that, that some things can change if needed. from both, from a risk perspective, it's happen something with a company or, from another need or wish from the. So then you don't have to change the whole, solution, you can just change parts that you would like to improve or take away or add. Yeah, I think that's will be more of the things that I will see in the future. But the outcome, it will be, I think it will be a necessary thing to have, to be able to compete in the market going forward. And I think people, employees will expect some automation to be implemented, in the future. Yeah. And it, it's one of these mega trends in business where before there was an assumption that there's a full suite approach where kind of you can do everything in one go and one piece of a stack of software is gonna cure all e os or problems. What we're seeing as well is this ecosystems of very specific, intelligent tools that do specific things but collaborate and align with each other really well. And that's one of the kind of driving directions that you're now taking in your new role. You're working on strategic partnerships. This sounds like an amazing opportunity in the world we are today where technology, is enabling such rapid change. Now tell me what does your typical day look like? what kind of strategic partnerships, uh, what, what are they? As you said, partnership is the most fun thing to do if you ask me, because that's so important, I think for the, both from the customer side and all the organization you're working with, but also from a software company. it is an extension of both the customer and the software company that is needed for both, I would say most of the time. As you do know, I did join Rob Corp. One and a half months ago. So I'm fairly new into Rob Corp. It's such an exciting moment in time. I love every day of it. And, but on the other hand, it's difficult to say what I do day to day with the partnership because one of my major focus at the moment is brand awareness. Of course. I have to say surpr, positively surprising. That has been much easier than I thought when I started Rob Corp. it's easier than it was when I started U UiPath, because Rob Corp is more known, even though they don't know. It's really what we do, but the name itself and the brands is known by most of the big partners and the strategic partners that we do have on our wishlist. So of course I have a list of partners that I think we should cooperate and partnership within the, in, in the future, and today. My daily job is to try to. talk to them, enable the partners on the technology, make them from a business. It's not just technology, enablement, it's also business enablement. Try to understand how Robo Corp will fit into their organization and they need to understand the same thing from their side and also align with jointly customer opportunities. so that's something I do day to day now, and try. to start working on the partner program and try to implement the partner program to make it easy for the partners to work with Rob Corp and make it easy for the customer to understand what kind of offer the partner and Rob Corp can do together jointly for a proposal or an opportunity or also an ongoing. Delivery of course. And, in the field of enterprise software where we're talking about systems that serve large business needs, it partnerships are severely important. how would you describe the role of partnerships for Enterprise software? I wouldn't say it's, I wouldn't even say it's important. I would say it's crucial, now if I use Rob Core, but I can use my former employee, UI path as well, which is much, much bigger company. Without the partnership, we can't really extend, we can't answer to all the requests we do get for sure. We will not have the organization to be able to do so. but on the other hand, we will not have. Extension that we do need on the market. the, I would say that the partners is the extension of it, the company that is not just a partnership without them, we will not be able to grow the way we would like to grow. We will not be able to reach the customers that we would like to reach. We will, we can't say, and we will never have the same relationships, that the major. Partners do you have that has been working with that customer for sometimes 15, 20 years? Not in automation, but in other things. So, I mean, that's a, that's a thing that you can't really, you can't question it. It's, it's crucial. Uh, for, for Rob or, or for a UiPath or for any enterprise software company, I would assume. So I think it's really important and it's really important that we do make it, a partnership because partnership for me is not the sales situation. Partnership is when you do work jointly together. And it should be a clear win-win situation, where we actually see that we can, increase the benefit of what we are doing ourself. And it should be something that is better together than each of us would do. If we go to the market by ourself. So I think that's the thing that I think is the challenge, but also the really fun part of working with partners is that it's finding these really common opportunities, common partnership, finding the win-win situations and how we could actually develop things together, being even better going forward. It sounds like, a very, very smart idea. How about some of the benefits that partnerships can bring to end clients, the actual kind of users of the software? Do you have any kinda reflection? I think we did touch on that one when we were talking about, what we think in the future for automation. I think what partner can, I mean, partner has the, they have the size of the company to start with. They have a professional services organization with consultants that is. especially when we're talking about the strategic customers that are used, huge. They have the expertise in business and different technologies, not the specific software. They have all of them. So they do have expertise in things that, that a software. Company can never have that will bring, something to the customer because they can add automation in things that the customer wouldn't even think of due to their expertise. But they also have the strategy and the way of helping and supporting the strategy going forward for a customer. And they can do that in an agnostic way. If I come in as a software, Partner or, vendor to customer. I'm always having a sales and a customer relationship. I will of course, just talk about my software. I will not give them an, another example of something else. And. I shouldn't anyway, but when you come in with a partner, they can also pick and choose in a totally different way that shoots the customer and they can trust with expertise they do have in different tooling. They can actually trust them to do either a multi vendor solution, but they can also. Choose and pick what we did talk about before. If you see in the business intelligence automation spectra or even the ai, they can actually pull the solution together that shoots the customer in a much better way where, because I think that's where you get to outcome when you do add those different, software. And other tools as well, of course to a full solution. And that's where the partner comes in, because usually the companies doesn't really have these resources to do so and they don't have the expertise. Shouldn't have, because that's not their core business. No. And that's very well reflected oftentimes as well. The partners are very good at stimulating the development of the sector where the vendors get better at servicing the needs of customers when they get that very active feedback of what's really driving need. and one other things that, when you said that as well, the partners can also. Put the put, not put the pressure on the, on the vendors, but they can also add in information that needs to be changed. And then we could change it for the customer and other customers as well, because they can come in with, they can gather much larger, Information stacks that can then, that they can pull back. It's not just one customer say complaining. It's more, it's more, they said, This is not working for this amount of customer or this sector or this industry. And that could also help the customers. To help the vendors of course, and the, and the software vendors. But it also helps the customer in the long run. Yeah, absolutely. With one and a half months in the new role. It may be, early stage to ask, but the new year is coming. 2023 is just around the corner. What are the kind of things that you're seeing are gonna be your priorities for the new year ahead, your first year in the role? Enable as many partners, any qualified partners as. Because I think working with the strategic partners is really important, that it's the right partners as well, that really can be this, that we can really build this partnership with. and of course all partners are equally important. I'm not saying that they are more important, but you need to put a little bit more time and effort into those partners, both because they, Are agnostic. They have all the other tools as well. But in the long run, for a large enterprise, these are the partners that can really help to enlarge and scale those kind of businesses. Yeah. so for me it will be, my main focus will be of course, to, Be there talking to them. So they trust me and trust Rob Corp as a partner. But the second thing is to enable them from a technically perspective and a commercial perspective. Or when I say commercial, it's more to understand the pricing models, understanding the. The specific things that Rob Core has that differs from other RPA tools and that could be also developed. So you can talk about Rob Core into your opportunities in business and also of course, What else will I do? I will do joint opportunities. That's the main things. That's where we want to come. That's something I will focus quite a lot on. I will probably put aside enablement and everything if I need to, if they have a lot of, you need to have that. Cause otherwise the joint opportunities will not be good. But everything come to, to be able to work on opportunities together and successfully deliver. Automation to the customers. That's something that I will do together with those strategic partners that we have decided to work with jointly. And that sounds like an exciting, mission to head towards as you head in new thing you can do. I love it. Yeah, Absolutely. Now Robic Corp, I think you mentioned that it has a good awareness already. It has to be part of the marketing because it's a really cool name. You have a company mascot that's a funky monkey. I see a lot of your content everywhere. but to, can you just describe what is it that Robo Corp does differently from other vendors in the rpa? Rob Corp is, is actually coming across as the gen two. R Pay vendor. I would say that the are, I can't prove it, but I think, and it's actually I have seen it as well, is the leading, Gen two RPA vendor. Gen two is something that you do say whatever you talk about, but what does it mean in this content? I Robo Corp is actually building on the open source. Framework or platform, they have put a robotic framework on the top and then they have a orchestration that managed the door pay and delivered that to the customer. As a gen two, you never have to do the mistakes the gen one has done. You can skip those things, so you start from a different, different perspective. You don't have to do those mistakes and you don't have to do those investments. Of course, that those mistakes is given. They have based everything on Python, which is a language as you do know that is, is really common. And it's easy to integrate everything onto that one, which makes it's really flexible and really easy to use. that's also what I have done and one of the other things. I would say that we, that Robo Corp is doing really good is that they have implemented consumption based pricing and that doesn't It means that you pay for what you use, but it also means that you can be assure that Robo Corp. Will not sit back and be fat and happy when something has been, when you have signed a contract. Because for us to really gain any value is when the customers is using. For us it's really important to make sure that the utilization and the business outcome is coming and that we push data, scale it forward together, other. It will not give us anything and it will not give the customer, but it's a share risk that is really beneficial when you do talk to and customers. And also the speed of automation is something that is really something that differs, Gen one, vendor because you can actually deploy. Much. you can deploy a lot of bots for something that you want to do in a short time and it doesn't cost more. we don't have any license model as such, so you don't have to buy licenses for. 400 robots to do something that you would do in maybe two month. Then you do just deploy, robots for two month and then you can take hundred, but you don't use them for a really short time. And the cost in the end will be the same as if you, you can do much more in that short time than you would do if you had, licenses that you had to apply. So all these things is something that has been asked for a long time and hasn't been able to be sold in an easy way from the traditional Gen one operators that now it's actually something that could be done from the beginning with the gen two. And that was one of the reason for me joining Robo Corp as well. This is something that I've been waiting for happening and I really do believe in the way that, that Robo Corpus is, is actually going into the market as well. Yeah. And, and the product that, that they are, that we are actually having started to promote on the market now. And I can imagine that you've really seen the journey of RPA from the early days to this kind of, okay, this is a, a good pilot to try and now you're talking about generation two, and it has all the learnings come along the way from the last few years. Is this now mainstream? Is this still new from the companies that you talk to? Or is this this something that is like, Uh, ready for enterprise. It's not mainstream. I wouldn't use that word today. It will be, I can't say when, but it's, it might be in two to three years. It could be five years, it could be 10, but it will be there. but it's known and it's used by most of the enterprise customers anyway, in some way. I think, Do know the word. They do understand a little bit what it is and it's used in most companies at the moment. But I wouldn't say it's mainstream because I think it could be used in so many more ways and needs to be, to be mainstream. And imagine you're in the and will be. Yeah. Imagine you're, you're in the shoes of, uh, a process leader, operational excellence leader in a large company. Where do you see the RPAs heading for the next five years? Where are the big opportunities up? It depends where you start from, I would say in that, in that company. But I think, I think data to, to kind of cons, consolidate data and work with data that you do have. I think that's where some, somewhere where you go, but it will go from. As we did mention in the beginning, I think it will not be r pay as, as a so thing that you have, you need to have some process mining to understand the processes you need to have task mining to, be, you have to have the whole saying. I think that's where you do have the main, I mean, I don't know if it's a, you said a process leader. I'm not sure if that, but that's come from to them as well. I mean that could come from the whole company and a process leader, I think to underst. How everything fits together and, and what kind of really good output you can do. Because if you use just our pay without really understanding from a process mining perspective, what would you really do with the process? you can have some benefits with our pay. Of course you can, but not the full picture. And I think that's where we will see, the main thing happening. It's the integration between different tools for a fuller solution, if you would like to say that. and I think that's what process leader and companies will start using. More commonly they wouldn't think that they could take away one or another. They will actually pull them together to get the whole benefit from Yeah, from the ecosystem. And that is really well said. I can imagine that this intelligent enterprise, it's not just enabled by one visionary, but it's the combination of these different tools and approaches that just complement each other and, and just smarter ways of, of running business than we have. Yeah, and it's not just to solving a, a challenge or a problem here. It's more put into the strategy of the whole company and to be part of the future of the company instead of just solving a problem they see in front of them. I think that's where you see the change as well. It's more into the, to the strategy. Of the future of the company. Yeah. we're getting to the fantastic discussion we're getting to the end of here where, if people wanna look into the future and follow your vision, what are the kind of resources you would recommend listeners to follow? resources from knowledge or respo resources from. I think from your perspective, if you were looking at the future of RPA and where the things are headed, from your perspective, is there something from Robo Corp or, or from the community that you think is really, should be on the reading list of everyone listening? It shouldn't just be it should be something that specifically have the responsibility to look into those findings and being the single point of focal point of contact into a company. in some, I I don't know if it's going to be a function, it probably should be a function going further. But it needs to be some expertise that do have the, a tool to take decision, but also concentrating and understanding the use of. Automation or ai. I think they could be mixed together. I do not think, and that's not just because I'm working with partners, but I do think that it might not be that companies will do everything themselves. I think they, in the same way as, as the tooling, I think it will be more multi vendor way of looking into these kind of softwares. I think companies also will focus on the. core business and do use partners to help them, support them, not just in the strategy, but maybe work with them also for the governance and the way to, to implement it and run everything. To invest in knowledge. I think that is something that is wise to start doing now and make those people have time to do it as well. They don't have time. They have so many things on their schedule for that role. So it's not really taken, I think they take it when it comes usually. I think it should be more incorporated into the, to the business, everyday work and understanding of the full strategy of the company. Absolutely. And, it's been a true joy, Stina, listening to your advice. I can't wait to see what happens in your new journey, strategy. partnerships are hugely important and being generous with the knowledge that you learn is gonna be exciting to catch up, later and see the path you're on and what, where we take in the next five years. Now it's time to. So Wonderful work is, produced by Work Fellow. We're a new software company that saves smart people from doll repetitive work through a solution called Process Intelligence. Go to work, fellow ai, when you're ready to tune up your business processes and remember everyone, stay wonderful.
