The Remarkable SaaS Podcast

My guest on the podcast is Paul Teshima, CEO and Co-founder of Nudge.AI He is the CEO and Co-founder of Nudge.ai, a relationship intelligence platform that augments sales professionals around the world to access new accounts, analyze deal risk, and measure account health. He is a successful technology executive who has run Services, Customer Success, Account Management, Support and Product Management teams. Earlier in his career, Paul was part of Eloqua’s executive team, and helped lead the company from $0 to over $100 million in revenue, then through IPO and a successful acquisition by Oracle. The big idea behind Nudge is ‘Your Network is Your Net Worth’. That triggered me, hence I invited Paul to my podcast. During our interview we explore how technology such as AI can play a significant role to increase the impact sale people can make by intelligently augmenting them, and how it can augment sales management by making CRM data smarter to optimize forecast predictions and their ability to coach their team. Last but not least, we address why today’s generation CRM tools are inadequate especially around its core principle, the ‘R’ of Relationship.  Here are some of his quotes: The big idea is that your network is your net worth If you're going to be successful in sales moving forward, you have to value relationships. You have to build them and grow them over time. You have to use your network as a way to differentiate yourself against other sellers going for the same business Nudge, fundamentally, calculates the strength of relationships that you have we can be smart about the things we recommend you do on a daybyday basis. we take that layer of what we call relationship intelligence. Who knows who and how well. The system helps them bring those two data points together so you get the best use of your company's network to get you into deals. We're seeing companies generate hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars of pipeline very quickly because of that During this interview, you will learn three things: How big impact can be created by rethinking business software’s ability to change behaviour of users Why it’s key to not only understand the breath of our networks, but more importantly the strength of each connection within it. That’s success is not so much about the problem you solve, but more about the size of the problem you solve. If you want to create big impact, tackle a big problem. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest on the podcast is Toby Allen, founder of Jobs in XR. He’s a hololens producer at Microsoft, the founder, and CEO of TACON, a technology management consultancy and the founder of Jobs in XR, the first and only jobs portal for all digital realities. I got in touch with Toby via a comment on one of my earlier podcasts with Dr. Terence Tse. Being an innovative product expert that brings ideas to life using of Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality – he teased us with the potential of bringing Hololens and AI together to deliver remarkable impact That triggered me, hence I invited Toby to my podcast. We explore the benefits of an increasing hands-free world, how the combination of new technology platforms such as block-chain, AI and augmented reality have the potential of transforming complete industries, and how we should use that opportunity to think big to create new solutions that are both fun to use, and remarkable in their impact. Here are some of Toby’s quotes "There are three key things I'm fundamentally excited by. First of all is mixed reality. I think the ability to visualize your worlds in a hands-free capacity, augment it with holograms, and information and view that information in a new way is absolutely incredible. To get that, there's a real drive to understand AI and the power of information that you can have. There's also just blockchain is a very nice interesting way of creating a trust and an authenticity in the data. Those three are the perfect combination. There's going to be a very interesting shift in the industry and in professional business as to how those three key technologies are going to integrate within businesses That could lead to results that we've never seen before." During this interview, you will learn three things: Why the current generation of solutions is still distracting us too way much – and how by avoiding this distraction we could literally save lives How blending new technologies can help us in much smarter ways to actually avoid errors, problems, and waste What opportunity we can create if we start using technology to change behaviors and impact by augmenting people in contextually relevant ways. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest on the podcast is Stephen Browning, Interim Challenge Director Next Generation Services at Innovate UK He holds an MBA from Imperial College and a Bachelor of Science in Electronic Engineering. He spent nearly 20 years working for Philips Semiconductors and NXP where he held various software engineering, project management and business management roles. During this time, he formed close collaborations between customers and supplier to deliver open R&D programmes.   Today he’s is leading the Next Generation Services programme as part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. This programme is aimed at supporting the transformation of the UK’s Accountancy, Insurance and Legal Services sectors by the responsible use of AI and data.   This inspired me, hence I invited Stephen to my podcast. We explore the approach and urgency to transform the 3 very traditional industries. We address the opportunity this creates and why it’s required to take a broader perspective than simply ‘technology’. Here are some of Stephen’s quotes:   Role is to support industry to innovate and, thus, support economic growth for the country. The basic idea of the program is that artificial intelligence and the increasingly soft data will transform every sector of the economy. We were trying to look at areas where the UK had a particular strength, but where there was a risk of AI and data coming in, disrupting that, and meaning that the UK's, its own strength would diminish somehow. Ultimately, we have to drive the economic race. We want to make sure that that economic race happens as much as possible in a way that it's going to help people rather than just be a complete replacement. We are very much looking at that human plus machine approach.   By listening to this interview, you will learn three things: 1)   Why doing things better and faster is not enough to create transformative change and protect competitiveness 2)   How technology can be a lever to significantly expand market opportunity by addressing non-customers 3)   What’s required to concur inertia in a company/sector to remain relevant.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest on the podcast is this week is Lisa Xiong, Senior Research Associate at the Center for Policy & Competitiveness at Ecole Des Ponts Business School in Paris Her research domain is Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Competitiveness, and at this moment she’s working on a comparative study between European companies and culture with Chinese Companies and culture. This triggered me, and hence I invited Lisa to my podcast. We’re exploring the differences between China and the ‘western world’ with regards to the approach towards the topics mentioned. We discuss what China is doing differently to speed up innovation, how they successfully encourage people to start their own business rather than take a ‘wait and see’ approach when they are automated out of a process, and how this could turn out into a very beneficial cultural difference to prevent us from getting a ‘Universal Basic Income’ Here are some quotes from Lisa:   What we see now is that China definitely has taken a different approach than traditional American approach or a little bit conservative European approach If we play the game according to someone else rules, one way or another it's difficult to catch up. I would like to focus on three keywords when I'm explaining this. One is innovation, the second one is entrepreneurship, and the third one which would be the leading result of competitiveness as a nation. What I see in China is that in 2015, we create called mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation initiative or campaign by our premier, Mr. Li Keqjang The whole culture of being innovative and entrepreneurial is out there. … because we're latecomers, therefore we can shortcuts. We don't have to go through those obstacles and difficulties.   By listening to this interview, you will learn three things: How you can protect innovation in downturns by creating ‘an invisible protection shelter’ Why investing in incubator programs fuelled with students are great ways to accelerate innovation That motivating and recognizing people are critical and very effective tools to scale success. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest on the podcast is Patrik Berglund, co-founder and CEO of Oslo-based Xeneta, a company that’s created a price comparison platform for containerized freight in order to transform the way the shipping and logistics industry are buying and selling.  Patrick is a logistics and tech-enthusiast and possesses a true passion for modernizing business processes related to logistics procurement and the supply chain. His experience came from working several years at Kuehne + Nagel and from his work as Co-Founder of Nordilog, a logistics consultancy firm.  Xeneta was founded in 2012 and has grown in the meantime to be the top worldwide source to compare shipping rates against the market average, market highs and lows. The way Xeneta has achieved this is through the concepts of crowd-sourcing, thereby turning negotiation powers from sellers to buyers, hence transforming the way the industry operates.  This inspired me, hence I invited Patrik to my podcast. We explore what it requires to completely turn the dynamics of a market –turning the power from the supply side to the buy side – and beyond that giving both sides exponential value back in return. In the light of this we discuss the role of creating momentum, the essence of data, and the impact technology can make.  Here are some of Patric’s quotes:  To make a very long, complex story short, both of us found it very tricky too, peculiar and inefficient that so many container boxes delivering 70 percent of global trade were traded, bought, and sold with almost no visibility, almost no transparency as it became technologically possible to make it transparent, the incentives for doing so haven't been there. it's two problems. There's a lack of transparency in the market that's highly volatile. Secondly, the way they're buying and selling is absolutely crazy inefficient. In order to solve anything about the second problem, we have to provide visibility and transparency. What we're doing is that we're delivering data and insights that allows them to reflect and think differently. The biggest thing is that a lot of our customers will see now over the next couple of years, is that transition of being an online information platform, to also allowing them to change the way they buy and sell. By listening to this interview, you will learn three things: How solving massive market problems can be achieved by looking in the other direction  Why even with the most advanced technologies available a lack of something as simple as relevant data can break all your ambitions  That overcoming inertia can be the biggest hurdle to introduce the most brilliant products into the market See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest on the podcast is Ying Chen, Head of Product Marketing at Pega Systems   She’s acting as the Head of Product Marketing for Pega’s platform for Digital Transformation. In this role she’s leading strategy, positioning, and go to market. She joined Pega in 2015 with more than 10 years of software product management experience in various Fortune 500 organizations and VC-backed startups.   What triggered me to invite Ying to my podcast was the story around the Pega Platform – and in particular how it helps the world’s leading brands achieve breakthrough business results by using the latest technologies to augment people. During our interview we explore how value potential increases once you start looking beyond just automation. How by improving employee experience every company can and will improve customer experience, and why much of the value can be achieved by understanding and then removing intended and unintended obstacles. Here are some of Ying’s quotes:   “At Pega, we are extremely practical, and ask our customers in terms of how that technology should be used to truly transform It's all about making sure that you have improved employee experience that will lead to greater customer satisfaction. Where we're coming from...we think more about the point that you raise, which is, how can artificial intelligence improve the human experience? For us, what has changed the game, especially on this operational improvement side of the business, is this concept we call Workforce Intelligence Are they able to focus on the production work that you want them to focus? What is getting in the way of that focus? The impact that it has is tremendous.   By listening to this interview, you will learn three things: 1)   How you can dramatically improve the value of your solution by not just focusing on the current action, but actually on the next best action 2)   That applying AI and robots can be extremely beneficial for uncovering patterns in user behaviour 3)   Why it’s more beneficial to focus your effort at business model innovation, rather than process optimization in isolation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest on the podcast is Anastasia Georgievskaya, General Manager at Youth Laboratories. She’s the co-founder and General Manager at Youth Laboratories, a company developing tools to study aging and discover effective anti-aging interventions using advances in machine vision and artificial intelligence. Anastasia has a degree in bioengineering and bioinformatics from the Moscow State University. She won numerous math and bioinformatics competitions and successfully volunteered for some of the most prestigious companies in aging research including Insilico Medicine, which I interviewed earlier on this podcast about its product innovations. She helped develop an app for tracking age-related facial changes and was one of the driving forces to organize the first beauty competition judged by the robot jury, Beauty.AI. This inspired me – not because of the topic – but because of the transformational effects technologies such as AI are starting to have on our day to day life. What triggers me is what we could learn from examples like this to inspire other forms of value creation. Hence I invited Anastacia to my podcast. We explore the value of her company’s product innovation beyond the point of beauty. What lessons have been learned, what are the essentials to get right, and is the potential for society at large. Here are some of Anastasia’s quotes. The company's story started with the Beauty.AI contest, and then...It's a beauty competition judged by Artificial Intelligence, the first one in the world. We believe that tracking your skin health and the biomarkers that can be seen on your face is very relevant because images are a very cheap source of data and it's very affordable.  If you want to track the skin condition and track the dynamics, you need to make sure you can track its in‑dynamics algorithms can adjust to your baseline, and then you would be able to track the effects of different changes on your skin. For example, your nutrition, your lifestyle, amount of sleep, weather, sports, only you can understand what's the most beneficial lifestyle for you. It's very well‑aligned to the trend of personalization  During this interview, you will learn three things: That AI will change our approach to many questions – and as such spark new ideas for creating value we currently don’t have an idea about Why collaboration is key to not only accelerate the innovation process but more importantly, give you insights to increase the value you offer with your solution How involving skeptics increase the relevancy and simplicity of your solution.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest on the podcast is Tom Pennings, Founder and CEO of Onsophic   He’s what he calls a highly technical entrepreneur, technology enthusiast and business networker. He’s worked for Borland, EVS, Google and Apple. Inspired by bringing data to the learning process, he and his co-founder Ian Hart assembled a team on two continents to connect digital transformation and assisted intelligence. This was the start of Onsophic.   Unlike many Learning Management systems on the market Onsophic is about intelligently guiding every single employee in a company to optimize learning effectiveness and achieve their business objectives, rather than just delivering the training material and process. In doing so it not only increases the performance of global enterprises but also accelerates their human potential.   This inspired me, hence I invited Tom to my podcast. During our interview we’ll explore how the education process is broken and how that creates a gap between HR and the business objectives any organization has. We also address what questions business leaders should really ask, and what mindset they should embrace to succeed with Digital Transformation, customer centricity, risk and compliance and learning 4.0. Here are some of Tom’s quotes:   We bridge the gap between HR and the business objectives by correlating training with on‑the‑job performance. There's 536 different LMS solutions out there. What that really is, is I would say ‑‑ and this not meant negative ‑‑ it is a content delivery…. facilitating the delivery process The challenges is, our opinion, not with the delivery process. It is about guiding each and every individual. Ultimately, Onsophic's goal is accelerating the human potential. The biggest win is acceleration of their human potential, but also in time. Very many CEOs underestimate the value of the people in their company It's really the people that drives a company. It's really important to make sure that you make strategic decisions on making the cake, getting the most out of these people I'm not talking about getting more performance out of them by implementing rules to make them work harder. No, it's about making, really, the work lighter on your human potential and get the most out of it.     By listening to this interview, you will learn three things: 1)   That the best results are achieved when process, people and intelligence augmentation blend in the right way 2)   That we have to increment the skills and capabilities of the workforce while we are bringing in new tools and technologies into the workplace 3)   That gut-feel is often a very good guide to follow in order to pivot the trajectory of your business – and that spending time on assembling a team with the same believes and passion is essential to scale the horsepower behind your business. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest on the podcast is Christian Guttmann, Global Head of Artificial Intelligence, and Chief AI Scientist at Tieto. He’s responsible for strategy and execution of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in order to create high-impact AI systems and products, patents and scientific publications. Christian has progressed Artificial Intelligence for over 25 years and is contributing to its evolution from both a business as well as an academic perspective. He has led innovation teams at BT, IBM, HP, successful startups and top-ranked universities. His drive is to advance AI technology, science and business to new heights for societal prosperity in teams of bright and passionate minds. This triggered me, hence I invited Christian to be a guest on my podcast. During our interview, we explore the ways technologies such as AI and Machine learning can have an exponential impact on our healthcare system – how it not only helps with reduction of cost but more importantly, how it can help to remove frustrating bottlenecks and increase the quality of life for many more people. Here are some of Christian’s quotes: I was very fascinated with building something that has an intelligent capacity, something that has the cognitive ability to understand the world around us. I've also been doing research in this area, looking at predicting and preempting certain events that may happen with patients that have several comorbidities, for example, that have chronic conditions. The big deal, really, the bottom line is it saves lives. It augments the healthcare system. It helps doctors as well as patients and, in fact, also the executives of, let's say, clinics and hospitals in ways to understand data and the patient journey in a very different way. It's also clear that you have a clear benefit to patients and you have the reduction of costs, for example, in hospitals, or you reduce queuing lines and so on for elective surgeries and so on. I love this combination. I think that it's increased evidence, also, that you have these combined teams of an AI and a doctor, for example. You just gain a lot. By listening to this podcast, you will learn three things: What to do different these days to ensure the best possible outcome of your solution Why technologies such as AI and Machine learning require us to give a broader consideration to our solution – think for example about the societal issues it can create And how solving big problems with AI is not always a matter of focusing on data, but often one of figuring out the framework.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest on the podcast is Tim Willis, CFO and Head of Growth at Aerobotics, an AI startup from South Africa. He’s charged with growing Aerobotics in non-core markets, as well as its global expansion efforts. He’s built his financial management expertise at both Deloitte and Uber, where he led its Analytics & Strategy Central Operations Team for the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA).   During this podcast interview we explore how technology can add significant value by augmenting farmers across the world to increase their yields, while becoming more efficient at the same time. We’ll also look into the wider value implications this can have across the supply chain, and how other, non-farming related industries, can be served uniquely as a by-product of the intelligence gained.   Here are some of Tim’s quotes: Aerobotics effectively takes aerial images of mainly agricultural areas. We collect those images using drones and satellites and potentially even aeroplanes. Farmers have a real struggle in terms of managing their overall farm…. …you're looking at farms that are hundreds of hectares big, and some farmers can't get through their entire farm in three days… If they don't have technology, they have to basically walk around or drive around their farm trying to identify areas that could be potentially mismanaged, and employ large scouting teams to work in their farm. With our technology, they're able to basically manage their farm from their office. If we look at the overall picture in the world, obviously food's going to be a scarce resource, and I don't think we're going to solve that by ourselves, but we're definitely going to be a player in the combination of solutions that solves that problem.   By listening to this podcast you will learn three things: 1)   Why focusing on outcomes, not outputs is the secret to creating a sustainable business 2)   How focusing on just a thin slice of the market is key to dominate it profitably 3)   That less is always more – in other words you’ll always have 100 to 200 things you’d like or think you have to do with your software, but identifying the 10 that will truly move the needle is the most critical thing. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices