The New Automation Mindset: AI + Automation + Integration

In this episode, Markus Zirn and Keyur Ajmera discuss the evolution of integration platforms and their growing importance in today's business landscape. They dive into the shift from traditional systems to innovative solutions like Workato, highlighting their impact on operational efficiency, automation, and data integrity. Keyur highlights the benefits of empowering business partners through federated IT models and utilizing low-code platforms to accelerate time to value and minimize project risk. Keyur wraps up by offering strategic insights for CIOs on building strong business partnerships to drive organizational success.

00:00 Episode Start

03:30 Importance of integration in modern IT

08:15 Efficiency driven by automation

11:40 Evolution of integration platforms

18:45 Navigating federated IT

23:25 RPA vs. integration

28:25 Choosing Workato for iCIMS

36:35 Organizing for success

40:05 Future plans at iCIMS

• Empower your people: Find tech-savvy folks in your business who are eager to learn. By letting them manage their own integrations and automation within a clear framework, you boost efficiency and create a sense of ownership. This teamwork can speed up project timelines.
• Leverage low-code platforms: Choose low-code platforms like Workato that let more team members, even those without coding skills, get involved in integration tasks. This makes integration easier and helps keep things moving smoothly.
• Prioritize risk management: Integration often comes at the end of the critical path in projects and is inherently risky due to its complexity and timing. Prioritize tools that minimize this risk that help you deliver faster with fewer errors, ensuring you hit your project deadlines.
• Take a collaborative approach: Be a helpful partner, not just a service provider. Keep communication open, empower your business leaders, and relinquish some control to foster a two-way trust. This approach can lead to better outcomes and help you secure a role in strategic decision-making.

“Empower and enable your business leaders to be successful. And the way you can do that, complete transparency, empowerment, not keeping control, but relinquishing it. Because then you become a trusted partner to them. And who would a business person bring to a conversation at the table? A trusted partner. That's who you want to be.”

In this episode, Markus Zirn and Yanni Charalambous explore the modern approach to factory automation through software-defined factories. Yanni shares insights on leveraging cloud technology, integrating digital twins for improved efficiency, and establishing their low-carbon ventures business unit. He highlights the challenges of cloud adoption, the significance of innovative technologies like carbon capture, and the vital role of strategic partnerships in driving innovation and modernization.

00:00 Episode Start

03:50 Yanni's work at Oxy

07:20 Innovative technologies and investments

09:55 Exploring software-defined plants and digital twins

16:30 Optimizing with a scale mindset

22:10 Cloud adoption journey at Oxy

28:20 Leveraging advanced technologies for future IT Innovations

32:25 Advice for successful cloud adoption

40:00 Economic impact of software-defined plant models

44:45 Future roadmap at Oxy

• Forge visionary partnerships: Collaborate with vendors and partners who align with and support your innovative vision. This alignment can streamline the adoption of new technologies and processes.
• Pinpoint a transformational cloud project: Identify a high-impact project that can justify your move to the cloud. This project should enhance capabilities and agility, helping to build a solid business case for cloud adoption and drive organizational change.
• Prioritize skill transformation: Focus on transforming your team’s skills to align with new technologies. Investing in their growth and development ensures faster, more efficient project execution and enhances their marketability.

“ Just the fact that you move to the cloud doesn't mean much to them unless you engage them from a data perspective. And show them how data now will unlock opportunities that otherwise are not there or they're extremely difficult to make happen.”

“I would advise anyone who hasn't yet embraced or engaged in this type of transformation to spend a lot of time engaging the people and making sure they understand the value proposition—what’s in it for them—in executing this. Along with finding that transformational project that inside the company that will really drive value and be visible as a value delivery.”

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In this episode, Markus Zirn and Arthur Hu discuss Lenovo’s transformation from a hardware giant to an IT services leader, driven by AI and hybrid cloud technologies. Arthur shares insights on managing global supply chains during COVID-19, balancing centralized and federated IT governance, and the crucial role of cultural integration. He also emphasizes the importance of a customer-first approach and adopting a process-driven mindset to foster innovation.

00:00 Episode Start

04:00 Balancing IT leadership and customer perspective

04:55 Lenovo powers Lenovo: Internal innovations

09:05 Exploring IT process innovations and AI opportunities

14:30 How removing barriers can empower your teams

20:50 Supply chain resilience during COVID-19

26:35 Centralized vs. decentralized vs. federated IT governance

31:20 Cultural integration in global IT operations

37:25 Lessons from providing IT services

• Embrace Customer-Centric IT: It’s crucial for IT organizations to operate with the same level of accountability and service quality as if they could lose their internal “customers”—the business units—to external competition. This mindset will sharpen focus on meeting SLAs and enhancing end-user satisfaction.
• Leverage External Insights: Recognize that learning from external customers and other companies can provide invaluable insights. Embrace external benchmarks and customer feedback to continually improve and innovate within your IT operations. 
• Foster collaborative, cross-functional teams: Break down silos and encourage collaboration across roles. By focusing on the customer journey and integrating diverse expertise, you’ll drive better outcomes and a more cohesive team environment.
• Cultivate and evolve your company culture: Invest regularly in nurturing your organizational culture. Establish clear norms and create opportunities for team bonding to enhance coordination and reduce friction, especially in diverse, global teams.

“The most powerful insight that we now apply, and I try to bring to my work and also with customers, is how do we take things that are automated perhaps very deeply, but not very broadly? And how do we use the process mindset to get out of those and actually think how do we have a better whole? An analogy that we use is everyone is trying to build some kind of a highway. But unless you have that integrative either journey or experience that you're targeting, then you end up with this mishmash, the off-ramps might not be connected, things don't actually work together very well. And so it's important to have an overall plan and as well as being able and willing to maintain that.”

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In this episode, Markus Zirn and Enver Cetin explore the game-changing potential of GenAI and digital twins in transforming business processes. They discuss how these technologies are reshaping customer interactions, automating decision-making, and redefining job roles. Enver shares real-world insights from Ciklum's Workato automation projects, emphasizing the importance of clear process mapping and embracing innovation to stay competitive. Throughout the conversation, Enver highlights how these advancements are revolutionizing both customer and employee experiences.

00:00 Episode Start

02:20 Workato automation projects at Ciklum

05:35 GenAI client use cases

12:15 Challenges in business process management

20:40 Introducing Workato Agentic and its impact on process management

29:50 Future of AI agents in business processes

33:50 Overcoming client resistance to LLM integration

39:40 GenAI's impact in reshaping business systems

44:35 What's next in AI and automation?

• Build a solid process foundation: Start with clear and well-structured business processes. Involve all relevant teams in mapping out these processes and address inefficiencies early. This groundwork will make it easier to use automation and AI effectively.
• Implement integration and automation tools: Leverage platforms like Workato to connect different systems and automate key tasks. Focus on improving data synchronization and streamlining activities such as HR onboarding or customer support to boost efficiency and accuracy.
• Utilize GenAI for better customer interactions: Implement GenAI to enhance customer service and automate complex decision-making. Tools like AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants can improve customer interactions and help you gain valuable insights from your data.
• Adopt Digital Twin Technologies: Consider using digital twins and agentic AI models to manage and optimize your processes. These technologies simulate decision-making and adapt in real time, creating more personalized, efficient, and responsive systems.

“No matter how advanced your tools, your technologies are, the effectiveness of any project hinges on a clear, well-structured process foundation. So one of the biggest lessons is that understanding the fine details of business processes allows us to automate and optimize them effectively.”

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In this episode, Markus Zirn and Steve Lindsey dive into the evolution and future of physical security systems. Steve discusses LVT's cutting-edge D3 system, which integrates IoT, AI, and cloud technology for proactive security, setting it apart from traditional methods. They explore how event-driven architectures enable real-time threat detection and deterrence, the importance of cloud adoption, and how platforms like Workato are reshaping business and IT integration. Throughout this conversation, Steve shares key insights into how these innovations are revolutionizing physical security.

00:00 Episode Start

02:35 Understanding LVT's D3 System

11:00 LVT's Journey: Challenges and growth

19:10 Overcoming misconceptions about the cloud

24:50 Building an orchestration platform

37:40 Navigating integration challenges

48:45 Bridging IT and business with event-driven integration

53:55 Future of physical security

• Embrace event-driven architectures: Dive into event-driven architectures to make your services more agile and scalable. By using asynchronous workflows, you can simplify maintenance and avoid the headaches of traditional point-to-point integrations.
• Adopt the cloud for flexibility: Explore the benefits of cloud-native services for your security and enterprise solutions, just like LVT’s D3 system. The cloud makes deployment faster, more cost-effective, and scalable, helping you manage systems across different locations without being tied to local IT setups.
• Invest in orchestration platforms: Leveraging orchestration platforms can streamline your business processes. These tools help you separate business logic from connectivity, letting you tweak workflows quickly and adapt to changing needs with ease.
• Align IT with business goals: Bringing IT and business operations together can make your solutions much more effective. By using event-driven architectures and orchestration platforms, you can ensure that your IT efforts directly support your business goals, leading to greater agility, smarter decisions, and smoother operations.

“We inherently were solving problems and innovating with a decentralized approach because of necessity. So, as we developed the solution for that, it became the enabler for scale for our business. And it was the only way that it was going to work.”

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In this episode, Markus Zirn and Suresh Jaganathan explore the power of a federated delivery model, sharing insights from Suresh’s transformative work at Unilever and Roche. They discuss the benefits of this approach, like scalability, flexibility, faster time to market, and improved compliance. They highlight the importance of a product mindset and the role of federated delivery in fostering innovation and business value in large enterprises.

00:00 Episode Start

03:20 Why a federated delivery model?

14:45 Federated delivery across industries

18:56 Integrating API-led and event driven architectures

22:20 Advice for starting federated delivery

29:08 The citizen integrator dilemma

32:35 Suresh's greatest achievements with federated delivery

37:23 Importance of a product mindset

• Adopt federated delivery for scalability: Enhance scalability and flexibility by decentralizing integration tasks. Train teams to handle integrations independently, while maintaining central oversight for governance.
• Create a marketplace for reusable assets: Build a central marketplace with reusable APIs, templates, and tools. Encourage teams to share and utilize these resources, fostering collaboration and efficiency.
• Embrace a product mindset for APIs and events: Shift to treating APIs and events as products. Assign owners to manage them with ongoing updates, customer feedback, and continuous improvement.
• Empower teams through integration champions: Establish integration champions to support federated teams with training, ongoing support, and regular workshops, ensuring successful implementation and continuous learning.

“Enablement is not a one time fire and forget exercise. It is a continuous exercise. So you need to have integration champions in your integration center for enablement team so that integration champions continuously engage with all the federated teams. They are not like policemen. It is more like a customer success person. So they engage with that federated teams to continuously educate them.”

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In this episode, Markus Zirn and Angela Stewart explore the future of AI-driven business transformation. Angela shares insights from her extensive career in CRM and digital transformation, along with her current leadership role at Nasdaq, where she drives strategic initiatives. They explore how tools like Workato are revolutionizing automation projects and offer practical advice on harnessing the power of GenAI. Angela wraps up with crucial advice on how to align new technologies with business goals to ensure impactful and successful implementation.

00:00 Episode Start

02:06 Understanding Nasdaq

03:55 Angela's background

10:00 Angela's responsibilities at Nasdaq

13:30 Implementing Workato at Nasdaq

19:30 Adopting AI and strategies for digital transformation

26:20 Aligning AI with business processes

32:00 Future of business technology

35:50 How to get started with GenAI

• Embed AI into your digital transformation: Integrate AI into your broader digital plans for greater impact. Focus on use cases that align with your goals and ensure ethical and legal standards are met.
• Prep your data: Data is the lifeblood of AI so make sure your data is clean and complete. Remove duplicates and fix errors to ensure your AI delivers top results.
• Build a cross-functional team: Create a team of tech and business experts. Include product owners who understand both areas and identify a decision-maker from the beginning to lead and maintain progress.
• Empower your team with intuitive tools: Provide user-friendly automation and integration tools. Democratizing technology means everyone gets to play and win in the AI game. Your business will be more agile, responsive, and innovative.

“AI is not a stand-alone initiative, it should be a part of a digital transformation initiative. And so, ultimately, there's a roadmap, there's an evolution of whatever you're trying to do, and AI, automation, should be a piece of that. But the very first step would be to identify the use case. Who are we trying to do this thing for? Who is this going to benefit? Really kind of understand their day-to-day life, and put your arms around how this AI solution, use case, will benefit them.”

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In this episode, Markus Zirn and Dirk Didascalou discuss the cutting-edge advancements and transformations in factory automation. They explore the evolution from traditional to integrated automation, the impact of the cloud, and the significance of data-driven automation. They also cover the importance of low-code solutions, the impact of AI, and the merging of physical and digital realms to revolutionize industry practices.

00:00 Episode Start

02:51 Defining automation in Siemens' context

04:45 Evolution of factory automation

10:45 From traditional automation to data-driven orchestration

16:30 Dirk's career journey and lessons learned

28:30 Debunking  ‘enterprise grade’ myths

35:32 The rise of low-code solutions

43:41 AI's impact on manufacturing

• Leverage data-driven automation: Utilize data analytics tools to monitor real-time information and context. Train your team to interpret this data for informed, adaptive decisions in your automation processes.
• Adpot low-code solutions for increased productivity: Empower your staff with low-code tools to create applications tailored to their workflow needs. This democratizes development and accelerates digital transformation.
• Harness the speed of software: The core idea Dirk stresses is the need for industries to transition to digital and software-defined frameworks to operate at the speed of software. This shift optimizes processes, boosts productivity, reduces resource consumption, and enhances sustainability.
• Embrace the cloud: Evaluate your current infrastructure and consider migrating legacy systems to cloud platforms. Leverage cloud-based AI and machine learning services for improved operational efficiency and innovation.

“Our vision is what if you can define industry by code? So it's all software, because software, of course, is much faster. So we want to get our customers to work at the speed of software and be data-driven. And that is the real revolution that will happen because that might change everything.”

Dirk Didascalou is a distinguished technologist and business executive known for his leadership in mobile communications, Internet of Things (IoT, cloud computing, and industrial digitalization. As the Chief Technology Officer at Siemens Digital Industries, Dirk is responsible for shaping the technology and architecture strategy on a global scale. 

Prior to joining Siemens, Didascalou held significant roles at AWS as Vice President for IoT and at Microsoft as Corporate Vice President of Technology following Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's Mobile Phones division. His extensive experience in these positions has solidified his expertise in IoT solutions and cloud technologies, positioning him as a key player in the digital transformation landscape.

At Siemens, Didascalou oversees strategic industrial partnerships and initiatives, particularly in the automotive sector, while also contributing to the company's IoT board. His leadership is instrumental in merging digital and physical worlds, helping customers leverage advanced technologies to enhance operational efficiency and drive data-driven decision-making across industries.

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In this episode, Markus Zirn and Stephen Franchetti discuss the evolution of IT from traditional roles to innovative business technology practices. Stephen shares insights from his time at Workday, Slack, and Samsara, highlighting the importance of strong architecture, the shift to a product mindset, and the role of automation and AI in driving efficiency and growth. They also delve into the cultural changes needed to foster a growth mindset and the critical role of experimentation in embracing new technologies.

00:00 Episode Start 

03:23 Stephen's career journey

09:55 Importance of architecture to scale IT

13:45 Overcoming traditional mindsets with your customers

15:00 Customer success stories at Samsara

18:35 Fostering a growth mindset for innovation

24:00 Strategies for scaling across business and IT

28:35 IT leaders and the shift to a business technology focus

31:30 Challenges with outsourcing

37:20 AI vs. automation

41:40 Embracing the AI revolution

• Embrace a product mindset: Transform your IT operations from rigid project-based work to a dynamic, product-oriented approach. This agility will sustain your growth and keep you ahead of the curve.
• Harness the power of AI: Dive into AI-driven automation to eliminate repetitive tasks and uncover intelligent business insights. Start experimenting today to unlock your organization’s full potential.
• Master your data: Invest in top-notch data management systems to ensure your AI initiatives are built on a solid foundation. Remember, quality data management is the key to meaningful, actionable insights.
• Cultivate an Innovative Culture: Foster a growth mindset and an environment that encourages experimentation. By supporting innovation, you’ll pave the way for groundbreaking improvements and operational excellence.

To do AI well, you really have to have enterprise-grade data. And so you can think about it almost like a garbage in, garbage out problem. Whereas if you have crappy data, you don't have enterprise-grade data, you have quality issues, you don't have the ability to kind of integrate that full picture of your data and your business. You can expect to have crappy outcomes when it comes to AI as you're training these models. You can't expect to have high-quality outcomes as a result of this. So to me, data management and your data strategy and AI really go hand in hand for organizations.”

Stephen is the CIO at Samsara. He oversees all aspects of the company’s Information Technology including, business applications, data & analytics, information security, IT service management, and all core IT services.

Before joining Samsara, Stephen was the CIO at Slack, and then previously the Vice President IT, Enterprise Applications at Workday. He also held positions at Cisco in a range of e-commerce, employee services and IT roles.

Stephen has a track record of creating best in class IT organizations that focus on automation engineering and enabling companies to scale and remain agile as they grow.

He earned his bachelor of science, with honors, in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Before we launched The New Automation Mindset podcast last year, we really wondered how far would a podcast about Enterprise IT really go? After two seasons, 32 amazing guests, and 120,000 listeners, we're definitely not done yet. 

In Season Three, we'll tackle really tough questions IT leaders are facing today. You'll hear all about business processes, organizing team members, change management, culture, Gen AI, agentic workflows, and more.

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