2957: Creatio's Rise to Unicorn: Transforming No-Code Development

[00:00:01] How do you democratise digital transformation and make it accessible to everyone in your organisation, regardless of their technical skills? Well, on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily I've got a fascinating discussion lined up with Andy Dovgan, Chief Growth Officer at a company called Creatio. And they are a

[00:00:21] trailblazer in the no-code and AI space. They've recently achieved unicorn status with a whopping $1.2 billion valuation. Yep, they're a unicorn. A unicorn on a mission to empower businesses by allowing non-technical users to build applications, automate workflows, without writing a single line

[00:00:42] of code. So today my guest will share insights into how no-code and AI technologies are reducing barriers, enabling faster time market for digital initiatives, and also so important how embedded governance ensures security and compliance. Big topic that one. Now to keep delivering top-notch

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[00:02:22] on with today's show. So whether you are a developer, a business leader or just curious about the future of digital transformation, this episode is packed with lots of insights for you.

[00:02:33] So buckle up and hold on tight as I beam your ears all the way to Boston where Andy is waiting to join me today. So a massive warm welcome to the show. Can you tell everyone listening a little

[00:02:47] about who you are and what you do? My name is Andy Dovgan. I'm Chief Growth Officer here at Craycia. Craycia is a global no-code vendor that's focused on automated workflows and CRM with the help of

[00:03:00] no-code technology. Well, it's a pleasure to have you join me on the podcast. There's so much I want to talk about because I know you've got a lot of insights in this area. And of course, right now

[00:03:09] there is so much hype and excitement around Gen AI. I've got to ask, where do you see this heading? How do you foresee the role of Gen AI and no-code technologies evolving in the next few years? And

[00:03:21] are there any or what measures are you taking to stay ahead of these trends? What are you seeing here? Look, Neil, I think that we are witnessing an extremely interesting technology revolution. And with both technologies, Gen AI and no-code, we are seeing a significant reduction of barriers

[00:03:43] for non-technical people to contribute to automation and digital transformation in general. Because what does Gen AI do? It allows you to use your human language and interact with human language with the technology. And same with that, no-code enables you to use visual designers,

[00:04:04] those Lego blocks, and go and configure and assemble a needed application or an automated workflow at speed and scale. The ultimate idea behind this technology democratization is that someone who is not technical, someone who is a business technologist, someone who understands the process

[00:04:23] or understands what exactly a business needs to do, without deep technical skills, will be able to come in, use a combination of Gen AI and no-code technologies, and will be able to build

[00:04:36] an end-to-end application or an automated workflow without a need to go to an IT department or without a need to learn very deep technical skills. And with that in mind, we are having an incredible potential to increase the capacity of people that contribute to the digital

[00:04:53] transformation. Think about this, there are around 25 million developers available globally, and based on the recent predictions, we need to create around 500 million new applications for our business. There is certainly not enough capacity for us to deliver on this backlog using only technical

[00:05:15] people. So the promise of no-code and the promise of a combination of no-code and Gen AI is that we can tap into a much larger population of knowledge workers, and we have around 1.7 billion of them, and make them contributors in this digital transformation journey.

[00:05:31] So much excitement around this at the moment, but before we get too carried away, I suppose one thing we've got to talk about is safeguards and responsibilities and ethics, etc. So are there any specific safeguards and guidelines that you guys recommend for regulating Gen AI and

[00:05:48] no-code technologies? And how do what you're doing here, how does that compare with other industry standards that you're seeing? Yeah, I think that in both no-code and Gen AI, every time when CIOs

[00:06:00] look at those technologies, they feel a lot of excitement to a point, Neil. They see a lot of potential to significantly boost the digital transformation journey, but also some people see risks, right? Risks of creating some additional areas where, for example, people need to set up

[00:06:19] additional guardrails and really kind of... If someone who is not technical can now build a new application, they don't have a lot of knowledge in IT securities. They don't have a lot of knowledge

[00:06:30] in how to expose data, those types of things. So the way how to go about it is by leveraging embedded governance. And this governance framework can work in both Gen AI and no-code

[00:06:43] types of scenarios. And the idea behind it is that you have a lot of predefined checks and controls, and you can extend that list by using the very same no-code tools. And then every time when you

[00:06:54] for example, creating a model or a process or a new application, your new application goes through those predefined lists of checks and balances that can identify potential issues. And until the result, you cannot push your created application into the production. What it does,

[00:07:11] it allows you to use those tools that enable you to be very quick with application creation, with ability to configure your business automation software real quickly. But also, it prevents you from publishing things that may cause some risk. So I think that the investment

[00:07:30] in governance is absolutely critical for everyone who wants to use technologies such as no-code and Gen AI. And here at Creative, actually we invest a lot into creating this governance framework on the technology level, on the platform level, that actually includes those checks and controls

[00:07:48] that I've just mentioned, but also based on the methodology, because we've put together a full-blown process for no-code governance. It allows you to first score all possible applications based on the level of complexity and business criticality, and then apply the right

[00:08:08] governance approach and the right governance process to make sure that it's aligned with what you're trying to build. And I think just to allow anybody listening understand what that might look like and how it might help and deliver a bit of peace of mind to listeners,

[00:08:24] are you able to elaborate on the AI governance process that you have at Creatio and how maybe a few new use cases are assessed for potential risks and those benefits? Anything you can share around that? Of course. Let's probably put some context by identifying a specific workflow or

[00:08:45] use case that we are building. Let's imagine that we are building a lead management process for a financial services institution, and someone who is not technical, for example from sales operations, would take available Lego blocks in a platform like Creatio. So they would take those Lego blocks

[00:09:03] that are available as a part of the platform, and they would assemble them into an end-to-end application and kind of a process behind it. So you can capture leads, you can qualify them,

[00:09:16] you can distribute them, and then you can organize a full-out process. So this is kind of a very typical customer-centric scenario. And then as you do that, you probably need to set up certain

[00:09:28] rules in regards to governance. How you're going to score leads with the help of AI, how you're going to distribute those leads, what kind of information you're going to use. And then once this application has been built, you use our governance framework that will potentially identify issues

[00:09:45] with, for example, application inconsistency. If somewhere you have an issue where a process falls apart and it's not connected, this governance technology will help you to kind of mark it, and then you can go ahead and get its result. Or, for example, if you are exposing certain data

[00:10:03] in a way that it shouldn't be exposed based on access rights, so some people within different departments can see this information but they don't supposed to see that information, the governance technology will be able to identify that as well. And also, if we talk about AI,

[00:10:21] if we completed the scoring or predicted next step, I think that providing you with any information that that step has been scheduled based on AI recommendation is another critical step when we work with AI type of technology. So this will be a very simple use case for lead

[00:10:39] management. Another use case might be with customer portals. For example, we're building an application for resident property management, and we want to build a portal for residents using no-code tools. And this portal will be used to update information, request, for example, keys,

[00:10:59] update documents, those types of things. Because we are dealing with external data and because we are dealing with customer sensitive data, the application will enable a different set of controls that will be checking and making sure that we have thought through a process of sharing

[00:11:17] the data between your application and the customer portal. We'll be able to also help you to identify the right level of access and controls related to sharing this data with external world and those

[00:11:29] types of things. So those are a few examples how you can use the beauty of no-code technology when you can go and develop those applications really, really quickly. But in the meantime, take advantage

[00:11:40] of no-code governance so that you don't publish things that can cause some potential risk or can provide certain third parties with the data that they're not supposed to see. And your insights here are so valuable because I think we hear a lot about the shiny benefits

[00:11:58] of AI technology, what we should be doing, but not so much about the governance. So I'd love to dig a little bit deeper on this as well for any business leaders. So how do you at CREATION ensure

[00:12:09] that no-code applications that are developed on your platform are also thoroughly evaluated for things like user access, data management, and scalability before that initial deployment? Yeah, I think it's a combination of two things. So overall, as we develop our platform,

[00:12:28] we're focused on enterprises and we're focused on things like scalability and ability to use applications for hundreds and thousands of users. So that's kind of an idea behind those components because here at CREATION, we have what we call composable architecture. So think about a

[00:12:46] platform that has a lot of smaller elements that can be assembled into larger applications. And each of those elements has been tested for versatile scalability and we make sure that you can use them in the most complex enterprise scenarios. So that's kind of the first piece of

[00:13:06] the puzzle. The second piece of the puzzle is everything that we do from, say, no-code process or methodology evangelization. We help organizations to identify people who can contribute to those digital projects, who can become no-code architects or no-code developers, and we help them to

[00:13:28] understand what kind of skill set and knowledge in training and certification process they need to go through to make sure that we minimize potential risks. And then once they've been trained and certified, what kind of steps in stages of the no-code development process they need to be

[00:13:48] following to make sure that they're successful and all those guardrails and governance issues have been taken into account. And then the final piece in this puzzle is the automation layer, our governance application. Those are these types of controls and checks that have been pre-populated

[00:14:06] and then a company, our customer, can go in and can extend this list of automated checks and controls by adding their own procedures or by adding some additional layers of approvals. If you have all

[00:14:18] those elements in place and they sound much more difficult than they are kind of really in real life scenario, establishing those controls and establishing this process is much easier. But if you have those elements in place, then definitely your process is much more controlled and you can

[00:14:37] take the full advantage of the no-code development. You may ask, so why do we need to think about all those elements? Because the no-code development cycle is probably five to ten times quicker than development with your traditional means,

[00:14:56] such as either package software or custom development. What you are able to accomplish with no-code in two months, you will be able to do with some traditional package software, say, in 12 or 15 months. And of course, there's a big difference because if you can utilize this power of

[00:15:14] no-code, you can digitize your process so much quicker so that you can use this technology as your competitive differentiation. And before you came on the podcast, I was doing a little research on you and I was reading how there are millions of workflows being launched on your platform

[00:15:31] every single day. So how do you maintain a balance between providing that maximum customization freedom and also ensuring robust security and compliance and all that serious IT stuff? Is it

[00:15:43] a tricky balance? How do you do that? Well, I think this is kind of the way how we operate because our research and development team prioritize those both areas. So we do invest a lot

[00:15:56] into those modern capabilities related to no-code and AI. And those are innovations, those are things that can help organizations to be stronger and quicker than their competition. And we have to invest into those areas because they are innovation enablers. But in the meantime, as we do that,

[00:16:16] we definitely put a lot of emphasis on everything related to security, everything related to scalability and those types of scenarios. So I think that a part of that is coming from our overall research and development priorities, but also the nature of our business, because from day one

[00:16:35] we've been serving enterprises and we understand requirements of an enterprise organization. So we didn't come to the space from, say, doing a lot of business for very small organizations and then trying to elevate a platform to address needs of large organizations. We build this

[00:16:52] platform with enterprises in mind. And as we do so, of course, we thought through what types of security, scalability, enterprise architecture we need to incorporate to make those large organizations comfortable and confident in this technology. And I was also reading that

[00:17:11] CreationRA is recognized as a leader in multiple Gartner and Forrester reports. So I've got to ask, what do you think it is that sets you apart from other no-code and workflow automation

[00:17:23] platforms out there in the market? What are you guys doing differently? I think there are a few things. First, we are the only vendor that has this kind of truly composable no-code architecture for enterprises. This is not very common on the market. Secondly, one of those

[00:17:44] reports that you mentioned, Forrester report for low-code platforms for citizen development, have identified that Creation has very strong governance capabilities for no-code. And we've discussed that with you, Neil, a few moments ago. So I think that our investment in governance is a

[00:18:04] big piece of this puzzle that contributes to success. And then certainly our ability to use the very same no-code platform and build a lot of ready-to-use applications for all aspects of your business, for sales, for marketing, for customer service, for different verticals such

[00:18:23] as financial services or manufacturing. And because we have this kind of best of both worlds combination, so we give you a lot of agility to go and configure processes and build applications. But you do that with the help of pre-built capabilities so that you're not reinventing

[00:18:40] the wheel. This is something that kind of sets us apart in this market. And if we were to put the technology and even the governance to one side for a moment, I think every new tech project is

[00:18:51] judged by what business value does it generate? What ROI is it going to deliver to the business? So in terms of things like customer and employee experience, what are some of the significant improvements that organizations have reported after implementing your no-code platform and

[00:19:08] CRM applications? Are there any big stories or examples you can share with those improvements or measurable improvements and tangible benefits? Of course, hundreds of stories. The biggest kind of headline value is focus on time to market. And we accelerate this time to market and we enable

[00:19:26] organizations to launch their digital initiatives so much quicker so that they can take advantage of that time to market to build a strategic competitive difference. I'll give an example of a

[00:19:42] UK company, one of leaders in B2B2C space with around three billion in revenue. So we were able to deploy an end-to-end project to manage all leads and relationships with their customers in three months for 7,000 users. 7,000 users in 800 depots or let's say showrooms

[00:20:08] were able to start using this technology. And each of that process had multiple improvements regarding to lead conversion, regarding to potential increase on the average sales price, number of crossing up sale recommendation products that have been made. So the company was able to

[00:20:29] launch this in only three months. If you compare that to some of traditional vendors, that would probably take them the same time to negotiate an NDA. And with Croatia, they are already live, right? And they are taking advantage of those business benefits for productivity

[00:20:46] improvement, efficiency improvement. And of course, this story has a very strong ROI attached to it. And they're just one of very many stories available within our journey. And of course, I also need to give you a huge congratulations because before you came on the

[00:21:03] podcast, I was also reading that just last week, there was a 200 million secured in funding giving you a unicorn status with a valuation of something like $1.2 billion I read online. Can you expand on that just for anyone listening that's not seeing this? Yeah, Neil, thank you for your

[00:21:22] congratulations. We're very proud of you. So we definitely did the capital rise a week ago, 200 million at 1.2 billion valuation. We did that to reinforce our investment in our innovations and technology and provide our customers with value, right? We see a tremendous

[00:21:45] momentum. We disrupt traditional software vendors that are very difficult to get implemented, very difficult to maintain and change. And we see no code and Gen AI and those types of technologies being a very strong alternative. And to be honest with you, a next generation of business automation

[00:22:05] technologies that can be used by organizations across the world. And we wanted to take advantage of this momentum and capitalize on it. So how are we going to use those funds? We're going to definitely invest into R&D, everything AI related, everything no code and possibility related.

[00:22:24] We want more of that. We want more innovations in this space. We'll also continue reinforcing our partner channels. We are a very channel-centric and channel-friendly organization. And we want to expand the number of partners we work with around the globe. And we also want to

[00:22:42] make sure that we further empower our existing partners. And of course, we're going to grow our team globally because we want to be as close to our customers as possible. We want to increase our customer success, our support, our sales teams to make sure that we can continuously

[00:23:00] build our brand and continuously be very close with our customers. Because here at Croatia, we have a very unique culture of genuine care. We built true partnerships with all our customers to make sure that they realize the most of the value from our technologies. And to do that,

[00:23:18] we need to make sure that we spread our culture and we have enough resources to support this ever-growing demand. Well, again, huge congratulations, phenomenal achievement. And something I always try and do as well when I'm talking to hugely successful people like yourself

[00:23:34] there is find out a little bit more about what's on their bookshelf. What are the tech leaders reading right now? We've got an Amazon wishlist. I always ask my guests to leave a book. Is there

[00:23:43] a particular book that you would like to add to that wishlist that you could recommend and why? Yeah, I will add two books. So one book is actually a Croatia's book. It's a no-code playbook. We have

[00:23:55] published it on Amazon. We put it together like it's 210-pager. It's event agnostic, so it doesn't talk about Croatia technology. It talks about how to go about implementing a no-code technology in your organization. So I would definitely recommend that. And my second book recommendation

[00:24:14] is Frank Slutman's Emptied Up. That's a very powerful book about this kind of a very assertive level of leadership and how you can take your company and really grow it for all senior leaders, for people that kind of work with scale in their organizations.

[00:24:37] This book can be very useful. Great choice. I'll get that added to our Amazon wishlist. And I'm conscious you've shared with me your time, your insights. A great book. So I'm going to see if

[00:24:47] there's something we can do for you now because some of the biggest names in business, VC funding and tech have either been guests or maybe even listened to this podcast. So is there a person

[00:24:57] you'd love to have a private breakfast or lunch with? Because he or she might just get to hear this. So who would it be and why? Let's see what we can find. Yeah, if Jeff Bezos is listening to

[00:25:09] this podcast, I would give it to fly to any place in the world just to get his breakfast done. Shoot for the moon. Let's see what we can do. We'll quite literally get you into space with

[00:25:22] Jeff Bezos. Let's put that into the universe, see what we can manifest. But anybody wanting to find out more information about Creatio, the work you're doing, contact your team, all that good stuff.

[00:25:35] Where would you like to point everyone listening? Of course. So you can easily go to creatio.com, and we have a chat. We have a lot of different ways for you to get in touch with us. If you

[00:25:49] have a need and if you have a workflow or a business application that you're thinking of building or implementing using purpose-built technology, give us a shout and we probably might have a better option for you. So if you think about CRM, order management, CPQ,

[00:26:10] customer portals, those types of use cases, Creatio could be an amazing technology to help you with accomplishing your digital needs. Well, I think before today's podcast, I was certainly aware of so many businesses around the world that have this legitimate concern regarding

[00:26:26] the potential for Gen AI and no-code technologies and how they could become unmanageable and difficult to regulate. And just hearing how that is exactly why Creatio believes that it is crucial to establish safeguards and guidelines around Gen AI to help usher in this next wave of no-code and

[00:26:43] all the exciting things that can happen as a result, and some of those tangible benefits, incredibly cool. And again, huge congrats for your recent achievement. But thanks for coming on here

[00:26:52] and sharing your story. Next time, I want to hear all about you and Jeff Bezos and what you got up to. Thanks for joining me today. Let's do it, Neil. Thank you. I think as we conclude today's

[00:27:04] episode, it's evident that no-code and AI are not just buzzwords, they're transformative technologies that are reshaping the way that we approach digital transformation. And my guest's insights into Creatio's approach highlight the importance of governance, scalability and empowering

[00:27:22] non-technical users to drive innovation. So again, I'd like to extend my gratitude to Andy, my guest today, his expertise and for shedding light on the potential of no-code and AI in democratising digital transformation. And if today's guest did spark your interest, I encourage you, share your

[00:27:42] thoughts. What are your thoughts on the role of no-code and AI in today's digital landscape? Have you started leveraging these technologies? Please let me know. Email me, techblogwriteroutlook.com, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter just at Neil C Hughes. You know where to find me. Don't be a long-time

[00:28:00] listener without messaging me. Connect with me now, send me a quick message and I'll get straight back to you. But that is it for today. So thank you for listening as always. And until next time, don't be a stranger.