Fast Forward: SAP's Steve Singh on Automation, Business Without Borders
Fast Forwards is a video interview series where nosotros take conversations near living in the futurity. Today my guest is SAP'southward Steve Singh, who talks AI, automation, and the future of travel technology. I wanted Steve on the bear witness considering he is one of the well-nigh successful technology executives out there. He was at the very nascence of the Internet. He founded Concur in 1993 and sold information technology to SAP two years ago for $8.3 billion. Allow's spring in.
Dan Costa: I want to get to your job titles, and I say titles because you lot have more than ane. President of Business Networks and Applications for SAP, Executive Lath Fellow member of SAP SE, and the CEO and Chairman of Concur Technologies.
Steve Singh: That was function of my signing onto SAP, is I wanted a lot of titles.
Dan Costa:
Steve Singh: That office didn't piece of work out.
Dan Costa: At that place's still fourth dimension. I call back you did okay. Let's talk about Concur. This is a visitor you founded in 1993. I did some inquiry. In 1993, that was when I was on AOL. AOL had just opened upwardly the Internet for mainstream users through the birth of the modern Internet, and you were starting a engineering science travel visitor.
Steve Singh: It's interesting, Dan. When we started Hold, the idea of the Internet, you're right, was just coming into being. To be off-white, our first version of Concur wasn't fifty-fifty a client/server product. Information technology was actually a shrink-wrapped piece of software that was really designed to solve a problem that I had. The previous visitor I was at ... I started a fiddling company and we ended up getting caused by Symantec, and I was on the road for nine months, and so as a role of that conquering, the CFO of Symantec said, "Hey expect, you've got til the end of the week to file your expenses."
I was stressed because I had about $150,000 of expenses outstanding, and so I went to Egghead, looked for some software, and there was nothing. And so I'1000 filling out these Avery forms, and after that I decided: "Okay, this is a great opportunity to get automate a business process." Simply nosotros did it with shrink-wrapped software, and then there was a transformation into client/server then another transformation into
Dan Costa: So that unproblematic process of encountering a problem and and then creating a technical solution for it, sort of what you've been doing for the concluding 20 years.
Steve Singh: Aye, I kind of feel like I've stumbled through parts of my life. Look, you retrieve about most innovation, it happens considering there's a need to solve a problem, and and so if you're passionate almost solving that problem and if you're passionate about creating something that'south sustainable and then a lot of skilful things happen.
Dan Costa: So, expense reports. People notwithstanding detest doing their expense reports. Information technology's never a fun procedure only how has information technology inverse? How has information technology changed from when you started to now?
Steve Singh: Maybe I'll just requite you my impression non only of that era but where I remember it'southward going. Back when we started Hold, expense reports were all paper-based and they were totally disconnected from the travel process, correct? So for me, I've never taken a business organization trip for which there wasn't an expense report, yet when you booked travel back in '93, it was a, yous pick upwards the phone and call your travel agent. Today obviously that earth has changed, and so what we think is going to happen is over time, the very concept of an expense report will go away. It'll all happen invisibly behind the scenes.
Call back about payroll. We don't interact with our payroll system. Really happy that we get a cheque every couple of weeks, simply the reality is, the check'due south automatically deposited in your bank, and I recollect the same process will happen to expense reporting. In fact, I would argue that two or three years from now, you lot'll not but see integrated travel and expense, I think y'all're going to see a digital version of credit. What will happen is that you'll see credit cards, corporate cards that are actually integrated into your budget. You'll exist able to swipe on a card and say, "Hey, look, I desire to file this transaction as related to my New York trip." And as you lot swipe the card it automatically goes into the expense report, automatically gets paid and procedure, then you literally do goose egg merely have your trip.
Dan Costa: The trouble with expense reports, at least in our company, is that everything needs to be canonical past a manager, and those sign-offs get nearly inconsequential considering you're doing so many of them all the time.
Steve Singh: Aye, and and so that'south why it's just got to become integrated into how you piece of work. In fact, I think that at that place'southward a fundamental shift in the world effectually this concept that nosotros call beyond boundaries, or business beyond boundaries, that basically says, "Look, the technology should shift and morph into how you work, not the other way effectually." Too much of the technology being delivered today is a prepare of services that you accept to get conform to, and the reality is that it's a stepping rock to where I call up the world will move.
Dan Costa: A lot of these services, some of the best services, work really without your input.
Steve Singh: Absolutely.
Dan Costa: You don't need to run into how the back cease is working, you just take a need and then the service fills it.
Steve Singh: Maybe very broadly, you saw the shift from mainframe computing to client/server and then naturally to cloud. I call back at that place's a next moving ridge coming, and that'due south the shift to micro services. I realize that'south a kind of well, for your audience it's perfect, merely information technology's a very technical mode of looking at the world.
Dan Costa: We should explain what a micro service is. How is that unlike?
Steve Singh: I think that the applications themselves are going to starting time to decompose. You started off ... SAP, it was the leader in enterprise software. They delivered this big, gigantic, monolithic application that ran every office of your company. The reality is, as you lot motion to cloud, these applications start to decompose into their component parts, and the reason they decomposed is that the individual or the customer say, "Look, I want better experiences in every part of this ... My business organisation application," and then the whole reason why Concord exists, is because as cloud computing started to decompose these apps, we had a gamble to come in and say, "We can deliver such incredible value here that you'll pay to automate expense reporting because it'due south only 10 times better than what you could practice before." At present you're starting to run into those apps even decompose further.
For instance, when you and I decided, hey, look, let's assemble, there was an email that was sent from your office to mine, and in responding back to that, all I did is, in Microsoft Office. I literally responded back proverb, "Hey, you know, love to see you, expect forward to seeing y'all on Friday." Considering of the work we're doing with Microsoft, that email picks up the fact that I'm traveling to New York, it automatically says, "You lot know what? I'one thousand going to go ahead and book your travel," and it calls services within Agree to book that travel, so I don't actually equally a user I don't go into Agree and use it, just the email itself understands that there's a travel piece that is needed here. Information technology'll call the right service to volume that travel, and that's what I mean by micro services.
All the applications volition be broken into their component parts and those parts will be used whenever it'south appropriate.
Dan Costa: And it relies on an open system.
Steve Singh: Yeah.
Dan Costa: And so, there used to be a model where you were a SAP business. Yous were big enough to bring in SAP and they would run your accounting, your payroll, your expenses, all these different things, and at present it's, "Y'all know what? We're simply going to use this for expense reporting, we're going to utilize this for accounting, nosotros're going to utilize this for payroll and it's all going to piece of work together."
Steve Singh: And the reality is that customers, whether yous're talking well-nigh individuals or companies, are demanding that, look, you lot want your systems to be open up. You want to be able to innovate on top of those environments, and that need is what will bulldoze the shift to open systems. But part of this is besides that, expect, there'due south no way i company can solve all of these programs. Equally much as I love SAP and I think it's got a tremendous opportunity to dominate
Dan Costa: Then, 21 years later you founded Concur, you sold it to SAP for 8.3 billion. You stayed on with SAP. I'thousand certain you did pretty well in that transaction, but you stayed with SAP and it sounds like you're enjoying yourself.
Steve Singh: I am. At Hold, it was never almost anything but I loved what I did, and I loved the people I worked with. I felt like I was solving a problem that was worthwhile solving, and SAP is a little chip of the same. The reality is, I took 5,000 people with me from Concord into SAP. They're my friends and in many ways like family to me, simply I'grand too learning a ton at SAP. Managing a v,000 person visitor, while challenging and interesting, is very unlike than being a role of the direction team of an 84,000 person company, and so I'thousand learning skills that are new, and as long as it's fun I'm going to bask information technology.
Dan Costa: And your portfolio's diversified a trivial bit as well. You're getting involved in the healthcare space now.
Steve Singh: Yeah. I happen to run a grouping called Business organisation Networks and Applications. Information technology includes Concord, Ariba, Fieldglass, SuccessFactors, our SAP health platform, and too our business data network, so a lot of very diverse and interesting parts of it.
Dan Costa: You used the phrase earlier, business without borders, I just want to ... When people hear that they think, "Oh, he's talking near globalization," simply it's unlike. Information technology'south more than that.
Steve Singh: Globalization is a part of it but the reality is that what we hateful by business across boundaries is that just the nature of how nosotros piece of work changes the way technology has to really be delivered, and so I think that that example of the emails is an interesting one. I don't want to become into applications to do my work. I want the application to effigy out what I want to practice and go do that for me.
Dan Costa: Information technology'south funny. If you count up how many applications we used just to prepare up this interview, information technology was Microsoft Part, it was Google Docs, information technology was Calendar, Agree wrapped into it, and none of that was intentional.
Steve Singh: No, and so as technologists, if nosotros practice our jobs right, the reality is these applications start to act on information and they beginning to accept deportment on your behalf, so think about what's happening with IOT. Sensors are existence built into everything in the world. Those sensors gather data and they ought to be able to take activity, and so actually simple example. If you're Rio Tinto and you've got large, heavy equipment sitting in remote parts of the world, only imagine just replacing a tire on i of these large tractors. These tires are gargantuan tires. The replacement price is not the result. It'due south when you supervene upon it, how do you get that replacement tire to that remote location?
So what'south happening is these sensors are being built into tires, and they're sending information and saying, "Hey, yous know what? I've got iii months of life left in the tire," and then it's integrated into the Ariba supply chain. Ariba'south maxim, "Hey, you know what, Rio Tinto, I'm going to send a tire to you because iii months from now you're going to need information technology," so the applications are starting to use data and take deportment on your behalf, and that'due south where the globe has to become.
Dan Costa: Yeah, well, I think that's a squeamish logical turn to automation. I'yard going to read yous something that you lot've written. Hopefully you lot still stand by information technology. "As nosotros move forward in today's digital economy, every single business process that tin be automatic will be automated. Every unmarried process that tin can be connected will be connected, and when you connect those processes with intelligence, with an sensation of context, systems can start to work on your behalf in astonishing ways." Is there where nosotros are right now, where we've got the automation and at present we're starting to add together the intelligence?
Steve Singh: Yeah, I think that'southward exactly where we're going. Look, it's going to have massive benefit for business, merely information technology's as well going to accept massive impact on our workforce. Information technology'll accept a huge social touch on in the world. When y'all think about what happens with AI being integrated into technology, in that location are huge chunks of ... Let's simply accept finance and accounting. At that place are huge chunks of the finance and accounting function that tin be done without the human being involved. So the role of each individual in finance and accounting is going to change massively over the side by side, I'd say, five to ten years.
So when yous think about the shifts in jobs that's happening in our economy, the jobs are not being lost to outsourcing to other parts of the globe, they're existence lost to automation, and unfortunately there's massive benefit to automation and concern will always try to be more than and more efficient, so the question is that as that shift continues, what do we do as a society to ensure that there'southward an incredible opportunity for people.
Dan Costa: I heard the example today that Ford was going to keep a found in the United States that was a seven hundred 1000000 dollar investment. In that location are going to be 700 jobs at that place, and 10 years agone there would have been vii,000 jobs, and 30 years ago in that location would have been even more than than that, and it's just something that's not factored into our conversation.
Steve Singh: Naturally. Y'all look at even self-driving cars, right? Even though we're non there today, expect, in 10 years will we be at that place? Probably. Think about, just in our country, the number of people who brand a living in taxis or in boondocks cars or whatsoever information technology might exist. That's going to alter, so we have to as a social club thinks about what's that impact and how practice we assistance train every member of our customs to practice more than and more valuable parts of work.
Dan Costa: We know that ... We've talked about drivers being replaced. Nosotros've talked virtually mid-level bookkeeping people beingness replaced. When does this start to get real for the American people? When do they start to actually appreciate information technology and say, "Okay, we demand to take action here."
Steve Singh: Now we're getting a little scrap more into the philosophical function of life, but I think one of the things that nosotros tin do a lot better chore at in our state is massive investment in education. The way to prosperity is through didactics. I say this because, look, I was built-in in literally a mud house in a tiny hamlet in India. The reason why I'one thousand sitting here is because my begetter knew that his only chance at life was to have a great education and go seek opportunities in parts of the globe where they existed. Every bit the core functions of lodge become automated, the only style for individuals to thrive is to drive an investment in education that gives them a chance to do more valuable things.
Dan Costa: So, are you bullish on the fact that if we did enhance pedagogy levels and we went to school longer and we got more specific grooming ... We've talked about fifty-fifty programming itself. Everybody said programming used to be this thing that, as long as you could program you'd always take a job. Programming has been automated now.
Steve Singh: Yeah, but in that location will be college and higher value functions inside programming, right? Nosotros're not anywhere near done in that space. In fact, I think that we ought to be investing in Stalk education all the way down to the kindergarten level. In fact, one of the things that came out of the SAP acquisition at Concur is that I had a run a risk to put together a minor foundation. The foundation invests entirely in education, and for usa, nosotros're focusing more on girls' education simply beyond the board in education, and and then driving programming or coding classes into schools. In my view, is an splendid opportunity to give that next generation of our citizens an opportunity.
Dan Costa: Artificial intelligence besides plays into it. Nosotros talked about automation, merely AI and machine learning
Steve Singh: I still think we're in the early stages of this, but y'all're starting to run into examples of where machine learning and artificial intelligence are improving the quality of the application. I think Google does an amazing job in this area. I recollect that SAP, while we do amazing work here, it hasn't nevertheless touched the client, but in the next two or three years, you're going to encounter that happen. So literally, our finance applications Concur, will have a ready of AI built into it that volition wipe out even some of the entry of expensive ports, and then they're starting to show upwards merely I yet recollect we're two to five years away.
Dan Costa: That's not that long, though.
Steve Singh: No.
Dan Costa: You should be planning for that. We should all be planning for that now.
Steve Singh: Yeah, and expect at ... You lot and I, as we've grown up through this industry, we've seen bounding main changes in the manufacture, but await at a visitor like Netflix, right? It's gone through 2 transformations in its 20-year history. It started off really as a DVD rental company, only today it'southward producing its own content, so twice in its history, it's transformed itself, and I think that rate of change is only accelerating, and and then 2 to five years, that's nil. You're going to run into massive, massive changes.
Dan Costa: Yeah. Netflix went from a deejay company that would mail a product that relied on United states of america mail to a streaming company, and so pivoted once more to become a content company, and all the while charging vii to ten dollars a calendar month.
Steve Singh: And by the fashion, a lot of the stuff that Netflix delivers is based on technology that someone else built, and then information technology's sitting on top of AWS, but a lot of the micro-services that AWS delivers is driving Netflix. In fact, it'southward interesting. As much as AWS supports the success of Netflix, it's also using the aforementioned technology to evangelize its own content, and so, in fact, Amazon Studios, correct? It didn't exist ten years ago, but at the last Golden Globes, information technology had xi, 12 entries.
Dan Costa: And information technology'south amazing if you look at how much money they're pumping into content production, it'south more than the studios are, and Netflix's pipeline ... They've got a billion dollars worth of content in the pipeline that hasn't even shown however.
Steve Singh: This is the kind of transformational opportunity that exists by taking technology, driving down to its component parts and making these services bachelor to anybody in the earth. What you're going to encounter is how those services come together and the products are existence delivered could exist fashion beyond anything we imagined, and in my view, that's the fun part of the opportunity in the adjacent ten years, only information technology's also massive change. Yous look at only the music or movie industry, how much that's inverse. Information technology'due south just the beginning of modify. The idea that talent can create its own content and distribute information technology and monetize it volition forever change.
Dan Costa: Yous've said if yous ever left Concur, and at present part of SAP, you might accept a stab at running an alternative energy visitor. What item segment, and would you be doing that for profit or for altruistic reasons?
Steve Singh: As I've gotten older I've realized I don't take enough experience to practice that. I think that alternative energy is an area that we have to invest in for lots of reasons, not the to the lowest degree of which is information technology'southward a requirement, given how much we consume, from an energy perspective, that we accept to find means to actually consume information technology in a ... Not just in a better for our surroundings, but bluntly in a renewable model. Wait, I nonetheless would dear to do something of that nature, but I'm too happy to invest in companies that do that. I remember what Tesla's doing with battery engineering is amazing, and frankly that'south the first role of the problem to solve.
Fifty-fifty if we could have a solar based set of power services, you however accept to be able to shop that free energy, and so that problem is an important trouble to solve.
Dan Costa: That'due south the thing that, when we talk virtually alternative energy sources, it's 1 thing to talk about moving to solar from oil, only you lot need all the infrastructure to support. Moving this free energy around, storing information technology, it'due south the battery problem Tesla's made great
Steve Singh: Aye. In fact, we run a small-scale charity in India. It's a girls school and it's a remote village, and and so power is not something you can always rely on, and so we actally bought the Tesla power wall. Information technology'due south existence installed correct at present in that schoolhouse. One of the great things about that village is information technology gets plenty of sunshine, so we've got solar panels that are charging that battery. Our hope is that once that's done, y'all'll be able to run the school with constant stream of power all day long, where today, information technology'south normal to meet every 5 or six hours, the power just close down for another 5 or six hours.
Dan Costa: I think that's an interesting perspective likewise because, in the US, we tend to think of ourselves and expect at what's happened in the United States and the effect of technology on the economy. But when you footstep dorsum and look at the standard living globally, a billion people accept left poverty in the last ten years. That's incredible.
Steve Singh: Yeah. In that location are so many areas we could get with that, right? Most of the human population doesn't live at the levels that we live at. To be off-white, there's some other part of this. Half the human being population really doesn't take the same opportunity that the other half does. If you think about the opportunity for women, information technology starts with an investment in didactics, and from in that location the gamble to engage beyond the workforce. These are things that you and I have enjoyed for our entire lives.
Dan Costa: Ane of the things as we were talking, we talked a lot about Agree and how yous founded that company. Earlier that, you were an employee at Apple Computer.
Steve Singh: Yeah.
Dan Costa: What was that like?
Steve Singh: Beginning of all, it was random luck that I got to be a part of Apple. I happened to be sitting in a bar and chatting with a guy that worked at that place, and he was working on a complex problem-
Dan Costa: Information technology'south a little harder to get a chore at Apple now.
Steve Singh: Yeah, aye, and I happened to be programming at the University of Michigan on a Visa, and he said, "Hey, look, why don't you lot come on out and meet the team," and it led to a job at Apple. This was dorsum when Steve Jobs was running the company. Very dissimilar era.
Dan Costa: The showtime fourth dimension.
Steve Singh: Start time, yeah, but I was totally blown away by the innovation that they were driving and how forward thinking the visitor was even back so. So, look, a lot of life is happenstance and I happened to come across an incredible individual that gave me a hazard at a neat life.
Dan Costa: So, Hold has worked out pretty well for y'all, merely accept y'all ever idea about what would have happened if you stayed at Apple tree and you lot spent 23 years working at Apple?
Steve Singh: Yeah. I had an entrepreneurial bug that was there even in the Apple tree days, and for me, in that location's never going to exist a time where I don't desire to create new things, and so that's role of what gets me charged upwardly. That'south function of what I feel similar I can add together value to, so I love the path that I've been able to have, been fortunate enough to take.
Dan Costa: And then, let's get to my closing questions. What are you most concerned about regarding technological development in the futurity? What keeps y'all upwardly at nighttime? What do you lot call up is a big problem we should exist addressing, and we're non?
Steve Singh: I think the bigger trouble is the impact of technology on order. From a jobs perspective, certainly, and I remember we as a gild have to think about, equally automation drives jobs out, what practise we do to help our citizens continue to thrive? I believe that this is an area that public policy has been to focus on actually. I think today perhaps nosotros're not as focused on it as we should be, and I do not business organisation myself with democrats or republicans. I believe that the reality is this is an area that we equally a country have to go spend fourth dimension on, and there are basic services that we need to deliver. It's education, it'southward healthcare, and frankly just core opportunity for every member of our club.
Dan Costa: On the flip side, what are yous most optimistic about, and this could exist a broader technological tendency, or information technology could exist a new gadget that you but brought home and you're similar, "This changed my life and I can't live without it."
Steve Singh: I'thou an investor in a visitor called Center ID, and I dear what they're doing. They're creating a digital credit card that has budgeting software that comes with it. Information technology's an opportunity to alter the corporate credit card marketplace, and so on a more than microscopic basis I'm excited about that, but look, broadly I think technologically, every bit much as information technology has potential negative impact on club likewise has a massive positive bear on, right?
Think about what engineering science can drive into the healthcare arena. If you think virtually cancer treatments today, the vast majority of cancer handling, in fact, all of information technology, is based on an boilerplate that every demographic is an average white man, age 55, right?
Dan Costa: Considering all the studies were washed on that demographic grouping of patients.
Steve Singh: Yeah, then if I'm unfortunate enough to have that problem, I've got some issues I have to deal with outside of cancer. I call up as we bring applied science to bear on what are fundamentally disparate data sets, I believe that we tin can drive a level of personalization in medicine that will radically ameliorate the quality of health, and and so there's tons and tons of benefit from engineering that I'm actually very excited about.
Dan Costa: Now how tin can people find yous online, follow what SAP's doing, make it touch with you?
Steve Singh: My Twitter address is @stevessingh, and evidently LinkedIn too, and look, any opportunity to engage with individuals around what we can do as partners or every bit a society, I'd love to.
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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/feature/14015/fast-forward-saps-steve-singh-on-automation-business-without-borders
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