UPDATED 19:54 EDT / JULY 01 2020

AI

Automation Anywhere raises competitive RPA stakes as Chris Riley leads global sales

In what some regard as a highly competitive race for dominance among key players in the Robotic Process Automation or RPA space, the stakes became a little higher in June when Automation Anywhere Inc. hired a major tech industry executive to oversee the firm’s global sales and manage its partner ecosystem.

Chris Riley (pictured), joined Automation Anywhere as chief revenue officer after a similar role with Dell Technologies Select. Riley has spent over 30 years in the technology business, holding senior executive positions with some of the largest companies in the world.

“I’ve lived through explosive growth at EMC, a top company performing stock during the ‘90s. I got to see VMware firsthand, I’ve seen what happened with ServiceNow,” Riley said. “I believe this RPA space is in its infancy, it’s seeing 30% compounded annual growth and we’re just in the beginning. It’s going to change the way that people work and really lead to that digital transformation that so many of us have been talking about for the last decade.”

Riley spoke with Dave Vellante, chief analyst at SiliconANGLE sister market research firm Wikibon and co-host of SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio theCUBE, for his continuing CxO Insights series. They discussed Automation Anywhere’s platform focus and customer loyalty, growth prospects for RPA in a post-isolation economy, reversing declines in US productivity and the importance of diversity and inclusion in the enterprise world.

Growing with the platform

Riley is joining Automation Anywhere at a time when buzz around RPA has shifted into another gear. A year ago, Gartner labeled RPA as the fastest-growing segment of enterprise software in the world, and one research firm predicted the market to grow 32% over the next four years.

What attracted a seasoned executive such as Riley to join Automation Anywhere was the opportunity to become part of a company which was not centered around a point product solutions approach, but rather a platform such as those of established firms such as VMware Inc. and ServiceNow Inc.

“That’s what attracted me to Automation Anywhere, this platform approach,” Riley said. “Companies aren’t looking to develop a point product solution and then cobble together lots of disparate islands of solutions. They’re looking for a platform that can grow as they grow, that can extend from the back office to the front office.”

To date, it appears that quite a few of Automation Anywhere’s 4,000 customers view it the same way. Recent data from Enterprise Technology Research shows that the company is experiencing virtually zero churn in its customer base.

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Much of the recent data on RPA has yet to take into full account the impact of a post isolation economy on the need for automation. Even before COVID-19 shut down much of the world and moved millions into remote work arrangements, there was growing evidence that automation would be needed to close a startling decline in productivity in the U.S. and European Union, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Eurostat.

“What COVID-19 has exposed is this work-from-home phenomenon that reveals the risk of manual processes within the enterprise,” Riley said. “It will accelerate the adoption of industrial automation and RPA. I really believe we’re coming into our own with front of the house senior executives who want to create a better working environment for their employees and de-risk a lot of these manual processes that have existed for years.”

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Move toward customer-facing apps

Riley’s move into the top sales position at Automation Anywhere also comes at a time when RPA was beginning to travel deeper into enterprise operations. A quest for productivity improvement in the post-COVID world will only accelerate that trend.

“From an enterprise perspective, I couldn’t have come into a better situation,” Riley noted. “Most of the RPA solutions really got in through the back office and wasn’t even a component of an IT solution. We’re looking at customer-facing applications and worker productivity. These are CEO, CFO, COO and IT initiatives.”

In addition to helping drive productivity for Automation Anywhere’s customers, Riley will also be focused on another important initiative: diversity. On Tuesday, Netflix Inc. announced that it would allocate approximately $100 million to financial institutions which provide support for black communities in the U.S.

“I’m excited to see what Netflix is doing,” Riley said. “There is no stronger time, at least in our country’s history, where the inequalities that exist have been so exposed. I view this as an opportunity, as I did at Dell, to make a difference. Lead from the front and make this a destination and company whose culture really supports and drives diversity and inclusion.”

Riley began his career at a time when the enterprise tech world was largely confined to mainframe computers running business systems. The notion of mass adoption for personal laptops or mobile devices seemed inconceivable at least until the mid-1980s.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home,” said Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, in a now-famous 1977 statement. As he starts his new role with Automation Anywhere in mid-2020, Riley is fully aware that the tech world has moved on significantly from then.

“It was a time before desktops and laptops,” Riley said. “Boy, the world has changed.”

Here’s the complete video interview, the latest in the CxO Insights series and one of many CUBE Conversations from SiliconANGLE and theCUBE:

Photo: SiliconANGLE

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