Boomi CEO Steve Lucas on Enterprise Integration

foreign speaks we're talking about the integration of applications and data in the Enterprise making it all work together which is a real challenge given how many tools and data sources that companies are using these days to discuss that I'm joined by a very special guest a real industry leader with me is Steve Lucas Chief Executive Officer boomi Steve good to have you with us today I am thrilled to be here and outside of you know maybe grilling and driving cars this is my favorite topic so I'm super excited great great okay I mean certainly there is there is a lot of interest in the in the idea of integration of data and applications it's a Hot Topic I think a lot of times companies struggle with it because Enterprise I.T has gotten a lot more complicated than it used to be back when when we had just you know one good old-fashioned data center you know now there's all sorts of endpoints there's apis there's applications Every Which Way what do you think of the the chief the chief challenges the company started dealing with these days absolutely right like what deeply resonates with me is what you said about like this isn't the old days right where it's just a couple of systems how do we get sap to talk to our fulfillment system it is not that the typical company that we're walking into the the the CIO it's kind of an emotional moment that we have where they're coming saying Steve I've got not dozens or hundreds literally thousands of things and endpoints and people and data and and then by the way not just data it's standards now that I have to connect and adhere to and comply with how and you know it reminds me like in a literal sense you know one of our larger our customers it's a a massive energy provider we'll talk about them later but in it like this is indicative of the world that we live in they use boomi to connect over 1500 different systems wow and that really drives the point home this isn't like oh like I said we connected one thing with one thing so it it really is systems apps people devices and it is breaking the back of cios what was that company doing before boomi if there's an answer to that question I'm just curious um solving it with people they're just literally hiring armies of people to to to connect and if you think about it right if you've got like Oracle and you've got Salesforce and then you you know some other division has sap whatever it may be all those companies speak different languages and all of them have different standards right over an sap land it's abop and Java and you know other things and then Oracle land hopefully there's you know more standards over there but none of these companies are incented to connect with any other company they're just not right why would they do that right right so it's kind of like I I often times especially in dinner table conversation I kind of say this is like that Tower of Babel scenario and like who who's the multilingual polyglot that we can just kind of Leverage to help us speak the language right we need we need real-time uh you know language translation which is still still a hard thing to have well I guess the the question then is and probably the answer to this question is a five-hour answer but if in a nutshell or a reasonable nutshell what is what is the answer to this tangle of trying to integrate things are there a few best practices what do you recommend people when they come to you in a semi-panic well the first thing is well I mean obviously the first thing is not to panic we have a solution that's first and foremost but I think somatically when people come to us I always like to say look I know we've got problems that we've got to solve but let's think big picture how do we help you as a company accelerate business outcomes and how do we help you retire massive amounts of tech debt and how do we help you simplify your I.T environment if we can do those three things just simplify retire some tech debt and accelerate business outcomes it's all going to be okay but we've got to focus on those things I think the wrong way is hey I just got to connect this thing with that thing and can you fix it for me right so getting to that that strategic altitude so that a CIO can think oh well now I've got instead of my it team and my developers needing to speak 10 different languages they can speak one and then you're using boomi to kind of layer in a solution across all of the different Enterprise applications you have apply Rich API front ends using boom each of those applications and then it's just open and that's that how you solve that Tower of Babel type scenario where you've got one common language one common motion and if you look at like take um sky so the the big uh uh cable and TV provider in the mea great case in point so that all they wanted to do was when a customer calls and they are or they have a problem and I'm using an app right so I'm I'm a cable TV customer I've got an app I just want to be able to type in my issue and then get some recommendations and you'd think okay well that seems straightforward but for the fact that sky is customer data and resolution data was in 21 different systems when you're talking about 21 different systems so where do you go well that's why they came to boomi and they said how do we just you know get this information in a in a Federated fashion from boomi across 21 different systems and serve it up to the customer and so we came in connected to all those systems integrated it with this app and the answer was six million pounds in year one of customer service rep time saved that's the answer and that's what we're doing over and over and over and over again well it sounds like you're talking about the importance of thinking holistically not just one pipe to one pipe but think think big picture well in that case let me ask you a Layman's question is there such a thing as a single pane of glass or some way to like monitor this this spaghetti all the spaghetti attached to all the spaghetti or it doesn't necessarily work that way there I mean look I think I think that that is that gets right to the heart of the matter that question vendors overuse single pane of glass and I think that's it right it's like it is one of the favorite things to do like everyone claims to have a single pint of glass and I'm thinking really yeah exactly well for there's there's two hype worlds right the first is you hear from these vendors they articulate their Erp solution or product or CRM like we all live in homogeneous world right there's only sap or there's only you know oracle that is I have yet in nearly 30 years of enterprise software to actually find a homogenous customer where they're just an sap shop it just doesn't exist that's not bad for sap it's just reality so I think grounding ourselves in reality that we live in a world of heterogeneity where things are hyper fractured and Hyper fragmented and by the way if software is truly eating the world where you have companies like a Campbell Soup who now has employees like 600 developers at the company right they make soup who makes tomato soup and I ate as a kid has 600 developers huh right exactly so when those kinds of companies have that many developers it's a good indicator of where the world's going software is eating the world applications integration all of these these things are they're intrinsic to your core business process so I think number one is you just have to say look we live in a world of heterogeneity I'm not going to buy the hype number one but then number two every three years skinny jeans come back in style it's customer 360 single pane of glass you know Uber control whatever the words are but I do believe absolutely that you can and should anyone out there should use a a veneer or technology something that goes across the majority of your Enterprise systems so you're speaking one language it's to me it's a fundamental truth it's why I joined boomi is like yeah speaking one language is a good thing and and please go ahead well I was gonna say is that unless it take a moment to drill down into the boomi offers that then is Boom is boomi offering that that veneer veneer concept you're talking about oh yeah absolutely well that's like back to the example I use so origin energy is the the name of the company and that's what we've come in to do so they had an entire team of very highly skilled I.T professionals and developers spending all of their time integrating the spaghetti between these 1500 different systems in a literal sense so their choice was hire a ton more uh I.T resources and developers or bring in boomi to integrate those 1500 plus systems they have one person now that looks after boomi and those 1500 connections one hmm they didn't have to go hire that Army they're just using that veneer another company cochlear they they their mission and purpose is brilliant they literally bring hearing to people that never had it before but one of their big challenges was how do I get patients in the operating room when I have all this patient data the doctor data the schedule information they use boomi to orchestrate that and that that moment when you see someone's hearing turned on and you know that your technology was part of getting that patient in the room and the doctor the right place and the medical team it just it means the world or the more hard Roi data like sky where you're sitting there going okay we're able to serve our customers without this intergalactic data warehouse initiative we're just able to bring the data from those 21 people together so the evidence is there that the veneer makes sense to your point well okay then let me ask you and even dumber Layman's question then about booming what it does we're not listening to you talk I'm thinking well sometimes I have to drive over to Best Buy to get a cable that connects USB with HDMI is that sort of what you're doing at an Enterprise level at Enterprise level the way we articulate what boomi does is we provide integration and automation for every company on the planet that's what we do and that integration and automation really is number one designed to connect all these disparate systems that's that and everything that you and I have just established around these companies just don't want to talk to each other not they're not incented to talk to each other so why would they right right right so so knowing that is like we we first integrate we connect all these systems and then we using low code no code a solution it's literally a design canvas I can go in and just drag and drop nodes to create a business process so if I want a lead comes in I want that lead move to Marketo then into Salesforce and I want to start to build a lead to cash process I can literally using a drag and drop canvas it looks like you're using PowerPoint just on steroids that's the automation part of the solution so this connectivity and today in a literal sense of boomi has connected over two hundred thousand Unique Systems apps and devices so that's the range of connectivity we offer we can connect to smoke signals and then a little bit of hyperbole but not not carrier pigeons carrier pigeons that's actually a good one um and then we can use that connectivity to create those Automated Business processes and then you're you're just letting that happen now beyond that the world of AI awaits and that's what I came here for was not just to keep doing what we're doing but taking that inner integration and automation Vision that we have and then let's unleash that along with machine learning well okay so I see the low code no code interface and of course that means we don't need developers to be doing things we as a staff or a middle manager or an executive could actually drag those elements across the the low code no code canvas then what exactly is AI doing in that in that world oh well I mean so we we have as as you know and you probably have a better view than most human beings on the planet given what you see in the IT world and the technology world I I think we we all know and I'll just state it and then I'll come back to your question we all know that GPT based Technologies and gpt4 and these new Concepts I think we are truly witnessing an event and I don't want to over hype it too much but I think it is of the magnitude of when when uh the the Advent of the internet I think long term it will have that magnitude of impact now I agree yep that's exciting it's going to take a decade to unpack but money has invested um for years in machine learning what we've done is we've said hey we know what all the systems are the customer has and how they connect them so we know that we we refer to those as integration patterns or design patterns and we've built these these sets of algorithms that will look at how you integrate data and then optimize it for you and why that would make sense is if you're a financial services customer and you're moving too much information to execute on a trade that takes time and costs you money now you could say the same thing about health care when you're moving patient information you need it now you need it redundant the the the surgeon performing in operation they need to know in the moment and you can't have you know latent data so obviously speed size all those things matter so we have machine learning technology that helps customers optimize where they store data how they integrate it where they move it and that's super cool but there's so much more that we can do so what we're building right now and we'll we'll come out I I have this thesis which or belief which is we need to be best to Market not first to Market but our best to Market offering is a chat GPT interface trained on boomi integration data so I can literally go in and with no technical expertise whatsoever ask it create a lead to cash optimized process for me hmm and then it just visually lays it out and actually creates the functional lead to cash process for me not based on what I assumed it to be from what I learned in business school but actually what's best for my business and you immediately get presented with a machine learning generated recipe or blueprint that is game changing because otherwise you and I know exactly what would happen a three-week effort and committees and thinking but you're just getting this in real time the ability to innovate on business process is about to be radically changed I I'm assuming that model would need to be fed a lot of information a lot of data for it before it could really become truly uh mainstream correct oh oh yeah for sure I mean I think there are multiple training elements to this so one data set which so in a literal sense boomi has tens of tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of design models over our you know near 20-year existence where customers have it you know the examples that we've used previously if you're integrating 1500 different systems we have a unique view of those integration patterns and what humans believe to be efficient or best right so we can train the model on that number one and the number two the models are looking that we're building are looking at volumes of data where are they stored all of the above so yes we train it on that but as a boomi user you have the the benefit of every other company that's come before you in terms of integrating to to get this optimized output for integration and what we I think it's just what what I'm interested in is not okay great can we optimize what I'm interested in is being able to ask the system that question show me three three different lead to cash processes and the impact and output thereof and then I just get that presented to me I the that iteration because you and I think we both know that the the the long pole in the tent right now the limiter to that is humans have to go draw it out design it put it into the system click test and we're shrinking that process down from weeks to months to in a literal sense minutes worth of testing it's it's very impressive hmm interesting well all right I think the big question is the future a companies really want to figure out how can we get ready for the future so what do you see when you think about Enterprise Integration and Ai and a low code no code platform all put together what is that going to look like oh you know three to five years from now and and how can companies get ready for it now well I think it's going to be less dependent on uh buzzword compliant words and phrases like oh API management ETL EDI all of these things are just words that people use to describe a different way to integrate information but they are standards we like that they're well understood this is about this is less about those words and more about how do we give any CIO any company the ability to just say hey I want a future proof platform that I can put across all of my Enterprise applications that lets me connect with those systems and automate when needed when the automation isn't there that's what I need and you can look at any company on the planet they all need it they don't all have it but they all need it and that's what's going to change is this this notion that I need this veneer this integration layer period And by the way before I invest in the next enterprise system I need that that's one two has to give Insight governance audit control there's a range of things that you need because the the back-breaking notion for cios today is I don't know if I'm compliant in fill in the blank country and so providing that insight and that governance and compliance that's part of that veneer as well that's going to change and then clearly being a partner to the business if I as the CIO can say um High Finance I can literally give you a technology that will let you iterate in a no training just ask it questions environment where it gives you different business model options that's game changing for the CIO that's never been offered before it seems like one of the challenges with that you know portrait is that the systems that are underneath that veneer are going to themselves change in unpredictable ways and maybe at a galloping speed so keeping up with the underlying systems is going to be a big big challenge for that true it is you're absolutely right so but the question is do you put that onus on boomi or do you leave it within it and I think right now that the fundamental challenge is it's left within I.T and then you come back to the example I shared earlier and you know you've got you know origin sitting there going okay I basically have to hire a truckload of resources to keep up with that that's not their job their job is not integration their job is innovation and I know that's a little cliche but it is fair to argue and I think that's where we are is just this deep belief that if we can continue to broaden the integration and automation value proposition we can drive that vision of the veneer and we can hold on to the low code no code ethos this is not about here's yet another complex technology you have to go higher abop developers good luck figuring that out right like that's not where we want to go we want to stay like lightweight simple high value ad High Roi if we can do those things I I think that you know for for us and certainly the other companies in the industry I think the future is super bright hmm it appears though for sure because certainly with all the with all the complications there's definitely a need for that Steve I think you said it a lot of interesting stuff um I hope you'll come back and talk with us again sometime and thanks for sharing your Insight well same here love talking and uh I uh I'm an avid listener and uh look forward to talking again have a great rest of the week

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