Robert Youngjohns, ABBYY | CUBE Conversation, May 2020

Thank you. Great to see you too.

What did I learn through the whole process of coming out of HP or in HP? I thought—

The unwinding. I think it was something we talked about the last time we were together, which is that the software industry is an incredible industry to be in, it's always in churn. New companies are created and new ideas come to the fore, old ideas drop out on the side, and you have to make choices: either participate in that tremendous upswing or say, 'I'm a legacy software company,' make as much money as possible out of the software you had. And I guess what I really learned in that transition was...

Well, after I left HP, I spent a little time working with McKinsey and then consulted with a company called Automation Anywhere, which is in the robotic process automation space. I've been very enthralled about that space: the automation of business processes, the concept of digital labor, digital workforce. Then I came across Abbyy, which specializes in some pieces of the RPA puzzle that haven't been fully cracked yet. One is identification of the process you need to automate — it sounds obvious, but a lot of companies still struggle over that. Secondly, provision of the data that feeds these robotic processes, often from unstructured data sources like documents, scans, PDFs, screen scrapes. Abbyy fits extremely well into that part of the RPA value proposition. They are a Russian company relocating to the US, which I think will be very helpful, and they asked me to help with that relocation and ensure they participate fully in the growth of the RPA space.

A lot of early automation was about very simplistic tasks. It's frightening how many of those exist — people spending days shuffling data from one source to another. But automation gets more sophisticated. Enterprises need to get very clear on their high-value processes, how they actually operate in practice rather than how they'd design them, and then automate. To do that, we need process identification tooling and to crack the biggest single problem of RPA: making sure all the data processes need is available. That data can come from documents, scans, screen scrapes, but it must be extracted intelligently, recognizing context, and fed into the right parts of the automation sequence. Those two front ends are where many existing vendors are slow to move, and that's where Abbyy has differentiation and value.

It gets broader than that. A critical part is that a lot of data in enterprises isn't fully digital. People still submit orders via fax or scans. Digital intelligence comes from understanding how business processes really happen within your enterprise, applying a new analytic lens. Then you can automate, but more interestingly, you can look at how processes operate and link them more efficiently. Historically, companies took whatever SAP, Oracle, or Financials defined and built their business around it. In this new world, if you understand how processes actually operate and create analytics around that, you can innovate around processes and gain competitive advantage. It's enabled by tools to find out what's happening, extract unstructured data, and apply analytics to ask, 'Could we do this smarter?' For example, if analytics show that A always goes to C instead of A→B→C, that becomes the new concept. That encapsulates what we think the digital enterprise looks like.

Process-rich organizations at the front end of those processes with high amounts of unstructured data — anything from PDF to scan to screen scrape. Your orders come in, insurance payments come in. Paperwork-heavy organizations, using 'paper' in a general sense. Those companies benefit most from automation and from what Abbyy offers.

That's the biggest problem of the automation market. Obvious processes were automated first by business process outsourcers. But for high-value processes, it's about analytics. Traditional tools like SAP or Oracle throw out huge amounts of information, and you can track how a process actually maps out. Analytics applied to that is where real value comes. Abbyy has a product called Timeline PI that provides intelligence on actual flow — you might find loops from C back to B due to errors. Based on that, you can prioritize which processes to automate. This front end is critical. We're not short of data; it's about having tools to analyze it, reduce it to business flows, and identify where improvements through automation create value.

Absolutely. It's forced us to use remote technologies for meetings, and we're realizing it's a massive productivity boost. I had a trip to Chicago planned — would have taken three days. We did it in six hours over Zoom, and the output was better because everyone was prepared. Board meetings are running on time, not getting distracted. The productivity lift is substantial. My wife did a remote doctor consultation — more efficient. Almost every industry will see this, and it may never go back to the old way of jumping on planes for everything.

Two sets of answers. The companies succeeding will be those in remote working automation space. Practical short-term advice: survival — cash preservation. Every company I work with is in cash preservation mode, making tough decisions to stay in business. But more importantly, focus on building competitive advantage for when this is over. Reach out to struggling customers, acknowledge their struggles, put deals on the table that win loyalty over five to ten years, even at expense of short-term revenue. Use remote technologies to make customer calls you wouldn't have made. I talked to a senior Microsoft executive, and he said three months ago he'd fly to cities for meetings; now he does ad hoc 10–15 minute calls across time zones, making him much more intimate with customers. That's a massive difference.

It's not that different from a small company. Get cash and spending under control — use it as a catalyst to clean house and run efficiently. But also focus on coming out of this in a more competitive position: create customer intimacy and loyalty by acknowledging clients' difficulties. Large companies may have more inertia, but the approach is the same.

I'm seeing a little differently. The subscription model is clearly right. Companies with subscription revenues feel better about life than those on perpetual licenses. But I'm also seeing companies respond to clients with payment holidays, asking for something in return — like references, executive access, or extended contract terms. It's a two-way street. Could be as trivial as a reference or as significant as a five-year renewal.

We want Abbyy to participate in the RPA market with unique value. The team is incredibly talented — development out of Moscow, great product managers and executives. If we bring that together with analytic layers, we can make a real difference in the perceived value of RPA. If we do that, we can avoid the 'silent despair' after the initial burst and get into long-term sustainable growth of the sector. We want to be part of that, and I believe we can.

Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate it.