EP109: Conversational Business Applications w/ Martin Kraft (DRUID AI)

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Process and Automation Podcast with the Automation Guy. Yeah, today we are back with one of our most popular formats on the podcast, interview episodes. And as many of you know, here on the podcast we are covering topics like low-code, no-code, workflow, Copilot, GenAI. So yeah, pretty much all the things which are related to process and automation to help business leaders and professionals to make more sense of it all. So our interview episodes are always so popular with the audience as we speak a lot about real use cases and look beyond the hypes, right? And beyond the sort of the shiny, the shiny things. And that is what we planned as well for today. We have another great interview episode planned for you and Yeah, you know by now, Arno and myself are very passionate about all things AI, process, and automation, and we like to have a chat about these topics with others who share the same passion as we do. And our guest today is 100% that kind of person. So without further ado, it's with great pleasure to have Martin Kraft from Druid.ai on the show. Martin is Vice President Sales EMEA and APAC at Druid.ai. And yeah, hello Martin, very nice to see you again and to have you on the show finally. How are you?

Thanks, Sascha. Thanks, Arno. What a warm welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here. Always, as you said, really passionate about everything we do here. Happy and blessed to work in this industry, especially in these times. Looking forward to a good conversation with you guys. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, of course. Very excited to hear your thoughts and the term you sort of invented or so really put into the market, conversational business applications. And yeah, to kick off, yeah, can you please share with our listeners a bit about your background and what you do at Droid and maybe how it started?

Sure.

Both.

So myself working now for 15+ years in the automation space, even in the time when it wasn't cool and hype and low-code and RPA, low-code. Whatever, when it was just automation or business process or optimization and automation and started real estate application developer, application programmer, moved from there into consulting, professional services consulting. And I guess the decline couldn't be stopped, ended up in sales. And, but always kept true to the, to the nature. I felt, yeah, well, as you said, the passion always kept me in the industry. I'm really engaged here and especially like the last 18 months have been such a whirlwind of development and how fast everything is progressing. I feel that the anyway already fast industry has entered like a warp tunnel and we internally always joke that every roadmap we try to pinpoint is anyway not worth the paper we put it on and this changes so fast now. They're quite interesting times, especially in software space. And here at Druid, my role is to help scale Druid's operation and business in Europe. And as you said, EMEA and APEC. So from, or good old rest of the world, everything which is not America. Got a wonderful colleague taking care of that there.

Lovely. So yeah, you know, this podcast is called Process and Automation Podcast. Arno, actually, I remember we talked about this recently because AI is such a big topic. So we, we, we, we still have that pending because we want to reflect that, that AI is bigger. So we have to rename the podcast slightly going forward. So, but yeah, between Arno and myself and over, we have over, sort of 20 years experience here with numerous vendors to support companies with all things tech. And yeah, where do you see the competitive edge for Druid in the market?

Of course, conversational AI, the space is super crowded right now. It's a hype topic and we get a lot of attention, but of course then by that as well, a lot of competition and everybody's moving into that space as well. Not only like companies focus on the space, but as well conversational features are popping up in pretty much every flavor of technology and digitalization technology. I'm pretty happy with the positioning we took because it puts us in a unique position to be complementary to many of these very good and charming technologies and giving us a very, very real value to the, to the, to the user's world. So I would wrap it up and we, we strive and aim to empower the modern employees to use all this technology because we had recently, we were looking at a study which said that there's dozens— the exact number was like 40+ or something— different applications in a company. The average digital worker working in a digital environment is— the person working in a digital environment is working with like a dozen, and the top 5% performers in organizations are working with 20+ applications. And if you think about that, that drives you mad, right? Who wants that? Who wants to be savvy and even expert or advanced user in 20+ applications from Ariba to Workday to, well, SuccessFactors, SAP, different modules, and so on and so on. It drives you mad. Quite understandable. And what we aim for is really consolidating all these different tools into one very intuitive and natural interface in one place and make the interaction with business processes, which which is still the lifeblood of companies, just very intuitive and natural. And by that, streamlined, efficient, and streamlining operations and so on. But putting all these business buzzwords aside, we help people to use all the potential of these different technologies now out there. I mean, every day there's dozens of new AI technologies and non-AI technologies and non-AI technologies using AI features and whatnot. It's, it's crazy how fast development is. And I think we, we are perfectly positioned to help people to keep up with this and actually bring these horsepowers to the streets.

Yeah, I think at some point we don't actually, we just mentioned that conversation, but we, we don't really care if AI is used, isn't it? So we want just things to happen. So if AI is used or this model or this model, at some point we don't care. But this is really exciting. That we can just ask and things happen.

Yeah, yeah, it's the idea, right?

And I think that, yeah, that's the key point, right? I think that if, you know, there's a lot of talk about AI and it's, I guess, a kind of different camps of people. You know, people are quite skeptical about it, people are sort of on one side, and then the other side, people sort of super embrace it. And then there's people in the middle that says, I don't really know what it is and understand it. Maybe a bit scary, I don't know, job losses and all of that. But I think if you can sort of position it or engineer it in such a way that it, it kind of almost is transparent behind the scenes, you know, we all use quite sophisticated tech every day. Like, if you have an Android phone or an Apple phone, there's so much tech in it, you know, we don't disclose to the actual end user exactly what goes on inside it. But, you know, who knows, it could be something as scary sounding as AI if you sort of explain it to them. So I guess it is all about sort of, you know, making things accessible without overcomplicating things. You know, you mentioned all of these different applications and wouldn't it be nice if you could just have one thing that you can just log on in a day and sort of just interact with and forget about all of the other systems and all of the complexities that that's behind the scenes. So that sounds very exciting, Martin. Just for our listeners, we like to talk about examples, example use cases on the show. You know, we get a lot of questions and requests from our listeners as well when we introduce new technology to actually, you know, especially when we talk to the vendors, represent representatives of the vendors to talk about sort of impactful use cases that are going to be delivered with platform And my question to you is, you know, if I access Druid AI and the platform, you know, what are the sort of impactful use cases that I can expect or what's out there that you've seen in your head, thought, well, that was a really good application of the platform, you know? So feel free to share those with our listeners.

From my perspective, I think a really exciting point is that we can go way beyond, I mean, in automation and you will be very, very used to this conversation. In many occasions, on many occasions, the business case is calculated just in cost savings, right? That's always like the easy way to go. And there I'm, right? Yeah. But then at the end of the day, the cost savings are not realized because we find ourselves in a demographic changing environment where this is not about actually cutting headcounts. It's about keeping the lights on. So this business case consideration is, I think, a bit wonky. Excuse the term, but I'm always more excited when we can help companies to perform better, not just more efficient in terms of cost cutting, cost savings, but really to perform at a different, at a more optimal, at a better level. So one of the my favorite examples coming to mind with Kmart, the big retailer in Australia, we had a case where we were helping them to create a, not just a, I mean, in the webshop, you had a search function like everywhere, right? Okay, that's fine. But this is not really replacing the experience of going somewhere and having a conversation with a person. And of course you could add filter by filter and click your query together until you find this one red bike you were actually looking for. But you could as well say, hey, I'm looking for a red bike for my kid. How old is the kid? So to have really, again, very intuitive conversation in an e-commerce environment. And that's in itself all right. But the impact of that, as you were mentioning impact, that's where I really get excited because it helped them measurable. That's always good if you can actually measure the impact you do, right? To come to a conversion rate in their e-commerce, e-commerce offer times 4. So we, we have not only increased the conversion rate by 5% or 10% or something, but we have a multiple of times 4. That's, that's quite a difference. And at the same time, like a collateral benefit, we increased the customer satisfaction by 140%. Again, not 2%, not 5%, not 10%, 140%. And when I hear these dimensions with which we can move the needle here by giving people the experience they as well now expect how the world works, right? You always have these game changers like Amazon changed how e-commerce is working forever now in terms of delivery times and availability of products and so on. The same like in the business world with Salesforce or with, well, multiple systems. And now of course we have ChatGPT just creating these expectations that everything is just a conversation away, which is quite natural. So why not? And if we can compare, if we can connect this and create these exciting business cases, that's, that's for sure making me excited. Or we had a, give some more examples in the US, we're working with a big university where thousands of students are helped by our agent, by our helper, friendly helper. With the onboarding. And I don't know how your experience fresh at the university, at college or whatever was, but I would have loved for an agent I could simply ask, where do I have to register for this course? Where do I get my schedule? Where do I get this? And just this access to data in a very natural way is really incredible to see for, again, thousands of students there. And we connect this as well always with taking action. Not only providing answers, but as well taking action. Here's the registration form. Should we fill it out? Yes, please. And then you go in a conversational mode through it because it's not natural to fill out forms. I'm very sorry, but it's not. So, but having a conversation is natural. And when we connect people, then basically with, again, processes, be that in the student use case or in a client retailer scenario, and we make this working better, that excites me. That's great. And again, moving the needle, right? Not plus 10%, but plus 140%. That's exciting.

Yeah, I think the impact, I think everyone should think of that anyway because we live in chat, isn't it? Especially when you talk about the use case with the university, that's so much that generation, right? It's about chatting. And you make someone applying for the university, not giving up by filling in forms, so much more enjoyable. Maybe some people think, no, I'm not going to university, I'm just becoming an electrician because I can't be bothered to go through these laborious processes. Because that is off-putting as well. Or maybe definitely it makes a decision if you go to University A or University B. It could be. And when you think about the, as well, the commercial aspects of going to private university or university in general here in UK, for example, there is a lot of commercial interest behind that, someone signing up or not signing up, so that their experience should be as smooth and frictionless as possible. So yeah, I completely can, can, can see that use case working well. Okay, so Yeah, intelligent automation, sort of hyperautomation, all these buzzwords, AI, GenAI. So if you look more into the future, where do you see things developing for companies in those areas? So basically working around AI and automation, and where does Druid AI fit in long-term?

I think generative AI, to touch on that. Is now becoming more and more adapted as a productivity booster within the context of all the different vendors out there for software that no matter what kind of software is ERP and ECM system, or is it a low-code platform to create applications or something. And we're going the same path, right? We're working hard on making not only the experience for the end users better, but as well for the, for the conversation designers so that you can use they're eating their own dog food, so to say, that more and more of the conversation part is actually conversationally done. That's, I think, a very good development and very clear case of where GenAI is making itself felt in every flavor of technology out there. For us, the mission is very clear. We want to be an enabler to drive adoption of technology. That's our position. That's a wonderful position to be in because we, you know, we We don't have our own LLMs we're working with, and I think that's good. We do have a known version of an LLM where we're using with other technologies on certain scenarios, but we can integrate with pretty much every LLM because we are still with shortly, a bit short of 200 people, a comparably small company with, with good funds, but not like an OpenAI or something, right? We don't have Microsoft in our back helping us to do whatever we like or Meta or whatever. And taking this complementary, making things more frictionless, as we already said, work and adding the enterprise-ready context to it, governance layer, data services, and simply making it work. I think that's a really, really good position for us to be in. So no matter what is becoming the most desired flavor of technology, we can still connect it with the people. And that's, that's our mission here. And it's a pretty good one, actually resonating not only with the CIO as well as the CFO, but because all these investments in technologies, they only pay off if somebody uses the technology, right? So to ensure this adoption, well, we can help that. So I think we're in a really good position, no matter which direction the general industries go. We're, don't want to say like a spider in the web, but we're sitting in this interjunction and making it work. Couldn't be more happy where we're at.

Well, right. Kind of leads me into my next question. You know, what, what is your best advice for companies that want to get started, let's say with digital transformation, digital automation, hyperautomation, intelligent automation? Automation, whatever word, but specifically focus on Druid. So if we want to get started with Druid, Druid AI, you know, what is the, you know, what is the secret sauce? What is your advice?

Well, you know, from your daily engagements with your clients, right? There's always things to consider, like securing a mandate, a clear mandate, taking a transformation and this whole transformation. Motion really serious and just not just expecting it to happen, but getting with a purpose behind it and getting it done. I think that's a really good one. And with everything behind it, like really setting goals for your different departments and not just expecting them that magic will happen. You need to drive this, right? And when we talk about driving the whole transformational topic, we have to talk about people. You already heard me saying we want to make the technology work. For people, but that means as well that we have to talk with the people and because else we will not reach them, then the adoption is still failing and then the best technology is just another cost. So considering in this transformation journey as well, the change management is, I think, a main success criteria. The second one would be priority and purpose, really going behind this whole initiative, no matter which flavor if it is with Druid or if you're starting with RPA or whatever it is, but do it with a purpose. Don't expect that by implementing one automation somewhere in a corner, your company's performance is going to change. That's not the case. It's really a different philosophy of how you have to go there and go about doing business. And that takes a bit of drive to get it done and moving there. So, will to move. And For the starters with Druid, it's quite, quite simple. I mean, our usual implementation times for cases are somewhere between, well, it's a couple of weeks, of course, depending on the complexity of the certain case, but let's just get going. It's, we're all comparatively new in applying AI-driven, AI-focused technologies to our business processes. And we, we all have to learn on the way. But if we just consider risks and problems and what, then nothing's going to change, right? Let's get going. That's maybe I'm too much of a pragmatist here, but I always like when we say, okay, let's get a first thing done with a tangible, a clear, manageable risk scope where you say, okay, this is a process like where you can't break anything crucial for your company. Do our first learnings together, and then let's move again by purpose with mandate, set goals and get going. Because I think in general, everything in digital transformation lives by, by rolling out and scale and making sure that this adoption is happening. Also, it's simply not worth it from a benefit perspective.

Yeah, absolutely agree. So yeah, this is what we preach here a lot on the podcast, especially when it comes to practically get started. That's, that's—

so should I have said something else?

No, no, no, it's good that they hear it from others as well, not just from, from us. We, we think we are the— yeah, the— yeah, we know it all.

The consultants are biased.

Yeah, exactly. And then, yeah, of course. Yeah, really, really good. Thank you very much for sharing that. Yeah, we have a tradition here on the podcast. So we're nearly at the end of sort of the tough, the tough questions. So we have a tradition here on the podcast. And then I think when we look back the last couple of weeks, so now for every listener who's listening to this a couple of months or years later, so we're recording this here shortly after the Olympic Games. So, so then in Paris 2024, so you will know why that might be important later. But yeah, we and our listeners like to get to know our interview guests a bit more, so more than just sort of the business side, the technical side. So that's why we like to ask you a few questions. Are you okay with, with those couple of questions?

So they were scared.

Okay, no, it's nothing, nothing, nothing bad. So who's your—

you can ask the questions, I don't have to answer, right? My, my idol, uh, another big fan of idols, but for sure a personality I learned about recently a bit, a couple of the life facts, is Ernst Leitz. Do you know him? Sascha, you maybe.

Is it from the Leitz Ordner?

No, from the Leica cameras.

Oh, this one.

Ah, so—

It's not Leitz Ordner here.

Okay.

That's okay.

So I live in Wetzlar, which is the city where the company was founded, and they still have the manufacturing sites here. And I was just recently on a city tour, the first in my life, 42 years old now here and living here for years and years. And that was the first city tour I took and learned a bit about the history there. So he was founding the, basically the industry was doing microscopes for pretty much everything. And then later on in Second World War, it was more obviously for, for tank optics and whatnot, as everything was producing for the war, blah, blah, blah. But even during that time, he, he kept true to a very, which I find interesting, a very balanced stand of being, being a, a good person, a good human, but still being an aggressive entrepreneur. And after the war, when, when everything was not good in Germany, obviously, they started the first compact camera and, and were considering what is our thing we go to market with. We need something to save the company. He he wanted to save with all means. He had like 400 employees. He was really, there was still the times where everything was very family and, and he said there, hereby I decide we will risk it to bring out this, this, this product of a camera to the market, which was in the end a big success and wrote history and for, for documentary. I mean, today's Olympic shows would be filmed differently if that decision wouldn't had been done. And I was quite impressed by that quote and the situation there, because if you look at it, hereby I decide. So he was taking the responsibility for that when he discussed it with his leadership team. We will risk it. He was very aware that this is a big risk. He was placing the bet, but still he, he has shown this entrepreneurial spirit while still fully acknowledging the, the, the, uh, the responsibility he has for the people he was working for. And so I found that super, and I could keep talking for what I read on him there for a while, but I think that was really an impressive quote, which I, which I took a note of. We have it here on a pretty big wall in the city, and I thought, I have to learn that. So maybe not an idol, but a very impressive personality.

No, that counts. That all counts. And that's a nice, nice, nice little story there.

So it would help to, if more people would, would do like those strong decisions, isn't it? Every now and then.

Fully acknowledging that it's sometimes a fault and a risk, but still we have to take decisions else there's no progress, right? And then not shy away and find excuses, but owning them even if it's the wrong decision. I mean, in his case, it was the right one, but yeah.

So I'll take the next one if that's okay, Sascha. So if you can get the contents of and the knowledge of any book out there instantly, which book would you choose?

Oh boy, that's a tough one. Maybe all the German law texts, because A, I couldn't be bothered with actually reading it. I think that must be the most terrible thing to actually learn. But if you would have all this knowledge and content available to you, it would enable you to navigate a lot of situations in life as well to inspire some changes. I mean, if you're going into politics or something, Look at all the politicians, they're all lawyers. Well, not all, but the absolute overwhelming majority, because sooner or later you have, you're getting in a, in a, I don't want to say conflict, into a consideration of laws. So in our complex environments and societies, I think knowing all the laws just like that, that would be quite interesting.

What's the best advice you have ever received?

Oh, I'm not sure if I'm good at listening to advice, but something which really stuck with me, and it's not directly an advice, it's more like a guiding principle which really resonated with me. It's coming from my father. He said when I was way younger, boy, if you're 18 and you're not a communist, you don't have a heart. If you're 30 and you are still a communist, then you don't have brains. So I don't want to offend anybody or something, but I thought that's quite, you know, things change, you have to, you learn stuff, your horizon widens and that makes you think differently about things. And I think it's quite important to remain a bit of the communist there, like Hans Leitz was. He was not a communist, but a democrat. To keep that heart but add brains to it because brains without heart is not good. Heart without brains doesn't work. So that we have to strive for that balance. That's a good guiding principle for me. Thanks, Dad.

Right. So let's move it to the Olympics then, Sascha, shall we? Famous, infamous Olympic question. So If you, well, if you could be an Olympic athlete, what sport do you choose?

And why?

Oh, just generally saying, I think I would take any sport if I would make it to Olympics there. Such a big achievement, right? So even if it's rhythmic gymnastics, but I can be in the Olympics, hey, why not? Breakdance, make sure.

Australia.

Not sure anybody, not sure anybody wants to see that, but well, okay. So I'll take enough expertise and mastery in any discipline to be good enough for the Olympics. I got the biggest respect and kudos for what the guys do there. It's quite impressive. I think from just from my past and what I most, what I enjoy most, it would be ice hockey or basketball. But, you know, I'm only way too small for basketball. I'm as well I'm not the most breacher guy so that I could be a force to be reckoned with in ice hockey, but that's what I enjoy watching. And so if a bit of a transformation would be part of that offer, then I think I would go for ice hockey. I love the sport. It's great to see the competition there, which for me, Olympics have a bit of a special character. It's more about the honor of things and not just about you want to be like in the major leagues and so on. And the competition, of course, is quite impressive. So at the end of the day, rhythmic gymnastics, if I have to go somewhere. No, no, I think it would be ice hockey. Yeah, good.

Thank you.

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So that's all the questions we have for our listeners.

Interesting questions. Yeah.

Yeah. It is interesting. Yeah. And it's always nice to hear the answers and to get a little bit different perspective. It's nice to know about the people behind this. So yeah, it was great pleasure to have you on the podcast, Martin. I guess if you'd like to come back at some point, yeah, we would love to have you on the show again. Yeah. And I'm sure our listeners would like to get in touch with you after that episode, either from the technical perspective or from based on the questions you just answered. So yeah, who knows?

Yeah.

What would be the best way for them to reach you?

Uh, of course, LinkedIn. My name is my name. Just reach out on LinkedIn and let's connect. Always happy for a connect, be it around ice hockey or about AI. I don't care. All good. That's great.

Yeah, that's good. Uh, yeah, I will put, put the, put the details into the show notes as well, the, the, the connect, uh, the, the, the details of Druid. And yeah, so our listeners can, can get in touch on all different levels. Yeah, with that, we're coming to the end of the episode. Thank you, Martin, for, for joining us today. Thank you all very much for listening. The podcast us today. Um, yeah, we will be back with another episode very soon, and until then, let's automate it!