You're not doing something enables a business problem
to be solved and the work to be
grown as a company meaning residue.
The the technology is not worth it, but
don't you have a discussion.
Welcome to
I'm your host, Peter High. My guest today
is Mike Clifton. Mike's the c chief Executive
of,
a global customer experience leader with more than
90000 employees and nearly 2 and a half
billion dollars in annual revenue.
He became c Ceo along with Max Sc
on May 2 of 20 24.
Prior to that role, Mike Woo
chief growth and transformation officer for nearly year
and a half, and he joined Laura, in
November of 20 21 as the company's chief
information and digital officer.
He's been a Cio or Cto, companies like
Cognizant or he led technology
transformation strategy and innovation as well. The Federal
Home loan Bank of Boston where you at
operations in addition to the Cio role and
at the Hanover Insurance group. I look forward
to hearing more about his past experiences and
how they've culminated in his taking on the
C Ceo role of Or, the world tech
and digital are playing at the company, his
view into innovation in the in the customer
experience space and more. Mike, welcome back to.
Great to speak with you today.
Thank you, Peter.
Really appreciate having me back again. So.
It's a pleasure. It's ARA real pleasure, especially
in light of this
promotion of doors.
Congratulations on on, achieving the the ceo.
Had a great comment like, Laura.
Oh, thanks so thanks so much. Yeah. Y.
I'm sure you
you might not get a lot of a
a, techno
Cios that jump into being c c Ceos
of of business process or business company, So
I'm sure we break a conversation.
I'm looking forward to it for that among
other reasons. Well, then let's kick in for
those who may be less familiar with it
with an overview from you on Caloric business.
When when we start there. So work as
a global company. We've got centers
you know, a... Most of the mainland and
regions of Philippines
you know, a lot in Em, of significant
amount of traction in Latin America Us is
obviously, a genesis of the business 25 years
ago. We were now at 20 fifth birthday.
So it's a celebratory year for us.
And in Canada. So we grown quite a
bit. Our core focus as a company is
obviously, you started with Cx, we are a
customer experience company and all things customer experience,
whether that's
taking a transaction or discussion with a end
client of our clients in Rev gen or
things like sales, all the way from companies,
the largest ones in the world selling great
technical products to,
financial instruments to or filling a,
subscription order or
food service delivery. So we've got a varying
degree of number of customers that do that.
We we bridge those 2 things from a
customer experience in into technology quite a bit
in terms of we deliver that service in
the world class way that we do it,
on that can span from just the experience
and how to handle clients in multi channel
ways all the way up to
do we think about deflect those calls and
interacting with sales water systems and fulfilling sales
enable for clients? So we've got up a
spectrum that we we move forward to. We
are not a core back office Bp.
We spend our time in the middle, and
in the front. So we distinguish ourselves by
I mean, world class with the people we've
got being able to handle high complex transactions
by having that interaction with those clients people
technically assisted as well as
let.
There aren't a lot of companies that have
the c Ceo model. There are some major
ones that have, like Google and Netflix come
to mind. But the vast majority of companies
at your scale especially have a single chief
executive officer.
What's your role entail and and how is
it different from the role with the same
title that Max Sc
has?
I I think we get stuck in models
quite a bit. And models tend to breathe
consistency and I actually think now is the
timing of industry where you break consistency. And
so
we we decided to break it and follow
a couple of the early leaders, and I
think you're gonna see more of this trail
behind us.
In our space it's highly complex. It's also
going through a massive
transformation,
being able to attack that in multi dimensional
ways, is hard for a single person. Usually,
you're hiring a strategist,
and that strategist is laying that vision and
then underneath them are folks that enable that
outcome.
What we decided to do was put
literally 2 big brains,
minds a little bit larger than Max,
but in reality, just from a size level
of my head, but But 2 big brains
in 1 box and say, look, we're gonna
focus on speed and efficiency, decision making. We
are both somewhat data driven individuals. So, we
like to look at trends and in the
themes and patents and then use that to
kind form our hypothesis of things and then
disprove it which everybody tries to do for
us. But that helps us with that speed
and efficiency. It also allows us to a
pivot point of our industry today
certainly, we're under the threat of Ai will
take over the world as as most, either
conversational or or or machine driven Ai.
And that itself creates opportunities. So if done
right with the right kind of thinking, you
pivot out of this with a much more
aggressive valued based company. And I think that's
where we're we're putting our energies towards and
2 of us doing that in either
in an organic or inorganic way is really
how.
So I got that... That's the real genesis
of of, I think the changes we've gone
through in the last month. We're excited about
it, but I would tell you,
we have this joke that our wives,
basically, when the phone rings, they realize that
it's the other person my myself calling Max
or Max on me. And they walk away
quickly and sales to you tomorrow. So so
we you have to be s bionic and
the thought process and Make it work. And
regardless of the choice of this model, You
do have to find 2
complimentary
people.
To your last point,
you we don't divide,
1 mistake would be to
divide up the
leadership team and have 2 up focuses is
where we just have our own domain dominance
speed the thing we focus on. I actually
think our best idea idea comes from when
I might be looking at a situation through
a lens that I'd look at it in
my way and max through another 1. Whether
that's me in a financial instrument or operations
view or Max and a technology or a
digital pivot view,
I think that
together is what the velocity,
of the speed of helps quite a bit
and and we we do that. So it
it's... I like to say, he likes to
play devil's advocate on all my decisions and
activate devil's advocate all his, but it it
works in a much more way than that,
but it's it's a great outcome. Fascinating. Really
interesting, and I love the way you described,
what you bring to the table based on
your past.
In fact, I'd love to delve further into
it. As I mentioned in the intro, you've
been a tech and digital leader multiple times
over at large
organizations. You've also run P ls.
Got a lot of customer touch points.
You've been a consultant to major companies. You've
had strategy operations,
transformation roles.
I wonder how was this diversity of experience
played into your... Being able to take on
the role you have now. You have a,
like, point of toolkit that you can leverage
depending upon the issue of the day or
the opportunity you're hoping to define? I get
asked this a lot. I think I said
it... When we talked last. I think 1
of those guys is career Ad b because
sort of bounce around between all these very
skill different skilled you know, needed jobs that
are very different. But I enjoy all of
it, so it it's hard for me But,
you know, through the
the luck, and I'll call it that or
or actually, just through true risk taking, I
think, without even realize I was taking risk,
I was jumping from
certain paths of building skill into other paths.
And I think what I got afforded through,
you know, other great leaders I work for,
quite frankly. I got... Afforded the opportunity to
kinda of blend over the line that most
people don't like to blend over, which is
I was always technology it's core, but then
how do I best place to sell it?
Where's the business objective the technology can enable?
Then there was the well, how how this
market different in technical markets? How do I
understand those and how how to shape a
technology solution to solve what the market need
was?
Than in marketing or in business operations. So
I've always had this sort of
desire to take tech as an enabler not
make tech my job, and that... That's helped
with getting into markets and sales and
operations where you're always, you know, enabling someone
to achieve something. But
you do have to be a little bit
of
little bit of a risk taker knowing that
your skill set might not be as peak
when you jump into a situation like you're
now in sales and you've gotta make a
quote and an engine work, or your sales
management, you got lead a lot of people
to the top of that hill and you
need to figure the strategy out pretty quickly.
Think I said to begin beginning, I think
been afforded
the luxury and
maybe I earned the right what I got
there. But on the way end, they probably,
like, this is really interesting experiment, but it
worked out and in both our favors
but III think I think it... It's what
makes a round well rounded,
c Ceo.
I think Max still does better things than
I do, and I still do things better.
In some cases if Max does, We know
that, but we also are, like, that's interesting.
Didn't think about it like that. Someone asked
my another question here that was kind of
akin to it is how can I follow
that path, and I'm thinking well give play
a pin ball, and they said, yeah? I
said that that's me. Moving around the pin
ball machine, and I said, I'm not sure
it's that's the path I'd take. There's probably
a straighter line somewhere to the success, but
I'm sure, I wouldn't do that. But to
me, it's be bold and take risks and
and tries to move things. And if realize
where your gaps are, I think realize where
your blind spots are, and then don't try
to fill them. Go focus in other places.
And how where you have
or on opposite sides of an issue
how do you... What... What's the tie breaker?
How do you determine which which
which way to go? You know, it's funny.
We were having this debate when
we were we were asked to consider,
the future in a very short amount of
time,
Max and I had this debate about. So
if we were to do this as so
duality,
what's our sort of
unpublished rules or the, you know,
I I was liking it to push the
mark marriage contract look like. You, Who's who's
who's got the ultimate decision.
And, you know, like, any good husband and
wife,
that's usually something that's not visible to the
rest of organization or a family,
but those debates happen
I think we played each other's strengths when
the tie needs to be brought. And it
comes down to gut feel with with longer
durations of a domain knowledge in that area
where
that's likely the answer in the tie breaker.
We often, and I'll just tell you in
the last 2 years working with Max.
There hasn't been
I think more than 1 time where we
might have been at the opposite side
of the answer, and it was really because
we didn't never got data, and it was
frustrating to us.
But 99.9
percent of the time, if what we get
is the data, we probably arrive very closely
to the same outcome pretty rapidly. So We've
been fortunate in that area. Like I said
it has to be a bit of s
nature thinking the same,
but pushing hard. So I think I love
to say, I I make 51 percent most
of decisions, but that's that's okay.
You've already alluded to the fact that customer
experience generally in Alaska specifically have been profoundly
impacted by advances in Ai and generative artificial
intelligence.
I wonder what excites you about the app
Ai you've already implemented and what excites you
as you look to the near future as
to what's ahead.
Yeah. You hit the nail in the head
as to why I think we have a
change in in in Laura, but also what's
made it. Really exciting for for Max and
I and and pretty much the entire leadership
team are calling now. You you can read
or absorb all this material about Ai and
the things that happening with really great technology.
Machines are learning. Could have been for a
while, or they're automating a rules processing or
learning itself, but generative of Ai caused a
conversation to happen that never happened and and
now it's becoming smarter.
A lot faster
than people grew up, you know, it's leap
with 07:10, 15 years
in a year if not more, and and
that's amazing. So
to us, that's a
massive opportunity for our industry, and we are
uniquely kind of position to that industry because
we're not too big. We're not a public
entity. We're not small.
So we have a bit of nimble and
we've got great capacity and financial instruments to
put the work.
Where we can put our best brains around
this accelerator strategy to kinda go after the
market and make the market. We, like I
said, we're not governed by and they're an
overweight portfolio of sites. We're not governed by,
you know, a massive amount of employees with
idle capacity. We are we are an engine
that's very tuned, and our clients that we
work with have belongs and relationships. It's great.
So it affords us an opportunity to be
a bit of a skill builder with them,
you know, we
we look at technologies if you look at
our core, it's Cx.
And then after that core with, you know,
next generation platforms whether they're in the next
cloud, delivered Genesis platform or our Cci at
Google's level, or Microsoft enabled platform with dynamics.
Those are easy
core level experience that we can get 1
level of higher thinking. But then you wrap
that with the next gen Ai around
tools such as coaching tools,
you know, them somatic analytics around the way,
voice and dialect go to voice translation, which
allows us to be a very big in
industry. You know, you're speaking
72 languages on 1 end of the phone.
And on the other, you're hearing a single
unify language in the same dialect tonal
and and fluctuation that you expect to be
on a real call. In real time,
that's a game changer. Right? That that instrument
there. Puts this world of Ai in kind
of a very re way. I would say
technology is an answer. The problem you're trying
to solve is the business region. So
Most people are still chasing a lot of
areas where language portfolios and countries are the
answer. We're looking at tech augmentation and a
skill set
issue, not skill set being the the main
skill set needed for the vertical,
business transactional, you know, B 5 banking or
or retail. So
I think that's gonna have a big
bidding impact on our industry and where Max
and are gonna go
is to apply those principles of using that
to tomorrow at.
And doing it in a very aggressive way.
In almost set the tone we're, you know,
keeping up, is gonna be hard to do.
And our expectation is giving our nimble ness
and our ability with of with what we've
got for for backing to get there faster
than any other the company.
And last piece I'd say, it's disruptive in
the sense of... You know, I was looking
because I've been a technology for a while
as you alluded. It's for quite a month.
You got these waves. Right? Whether you had
a wave of,
you know,
digitization or way way back. You had Y
and you just kinda kept following the same
wave to digitization, then digital took over and
the impacts to retail and now Ai taken
over and whether it's generative or machine or
you know, neural, all of its
got the benefit of helping
foster
tighter relationships, you know, what was easier transactions
sure they're gonna go away.
But when I look at our portfolio business
the depth of our k... Our transactions are
very complex.
They're not a single system or duality. It's
it's a multi system transaction with a client.
And usually it's because I need a human
in the loop. The reality is how do
we enable that to be assisted
and make it that much smarter. And I
believe that means we do that much more
transactions to today. They wouldn't put on our
portfolio.
So the the, you know, the aperture widen,
it doesn't narrow. I think that's the goal,
and we're we're going after it pretty aggressively,
which I think is your point about, you
know, the skill we've got. That's that's where
Max and I and a fine tuning 4
can kinda be applied. Yeah. Really interesting. And
you're kind of alluding to something I wanted
to talk to you about as well. And
that is there are a lot of people
to fear a job loss as a result
there's a result of advances in artificial intelligence
know you've got some Nuance perspectives as you're
beginning to allude to at the end of
your response there on on,
the... That that idea as it applies to
in And the extent which you wish to
po more broadly speaking about this being aperture
expanding as opposed to narrowing and therefore, like,
having the more profound,
you know, profound in near term implications perhaps
there's some fear. Can you can you delve
in a little bit further to what you've
already begun to allude to?
Absolutely. And and we get this a lot
from our... With... Max and I just finished
1 half of the world tour.
And we got to the Philippines and and
and visited
5 of our sites there across the Philippines
in India we visited our sites there. Then
out to Europe and visited sites care. We're
back in the Us hitting Latin America and
in the Us sites next.
And what we were looking for is group
we started this listening tour,
It was really not for us. We we've
been around for a couple of years so
people know us. But in reality, it was
a little bit tell us what's going on
in your heads as as our employees and
we we listen to calls. We, you know,
we talked to our our agents quite a
bit. Did town halls. And then the question
number... Number 1 question it, I seem to
get. There's never where they 1 Max gets,
But I get it is, Ai is gonna
hurt our industry where you think about it.
And I and I was at a bankers
conference this this past few days in New
York, and a lot of our peer Ceos
were there, and they got the same question
from analysts.
And it's an interesting answer. Right? Because it's
all about where you come from in terms
of
how your company is organized and how your
footprint looks to how you might answer that
question and or their private public has another
impact to that. But the reality is,
yes,
if you're today, a company that's taking
order fulfillment questions or answers is, then the
mobile phone took that away a while ago.
So if you were calling for your bank
balance, I'm pretty sure your mobile phone
took it away or your texting and capability
took it away. So that creating fear people
never happened.
It... What happened though was there was an
expectation that those folks... Those people who are
answering or doing those transactions. Now I to
do a different set of transactions. So the
reality of
of what opens the aperture I refer it
to it is, the humans are
the most intelligent piece eating mouthpiece piece of
that equation.
When they are. They're the easiest answer to
solving another human problem because that emotion is
what people want and talking to a person.
They want sympathy that that's happened.
We always will have a human in the
loop in our equation,
assistive technologies,
assistive the that may take a lot of
what that question would be out of the
way so that the last piece of that
can be the shortest transaction. But I have
this concept I talked about the last time
a little bit was
the Nordstrom concept, and I put them at
the top of a pyramid of of the
retail experiment and say,
you are
In always, you would love all of the
capabilities is the best technical ecosystem you have.
The most harmon business processes across the globe
that as you got to the top of
that pyramid and had to talk to an
individual, it's the world class experience.
And if all companies were so well organized
and technology was so well implemented and nobody
ever bought somebody and had to integrate them,
then that would be utopia it would all
load.
That isn't the real world.
What's the real world is we launch business
lines with very short technical needs and try
to see if it has stickiness in the
markets and then we add to as we
go, but we river really round on our
add to it. We just sort of do
what we need to do to keep the
the engine running. So there's always complexity and
everything.
The humans in the loop are likely gonna
be there, the more we continue to refine
that
and use the sister tech
whether Ai or data or any other omni
channel experience,
group voice translation, dialect removal. It's still at
the end of the day. I think
an experience where if you have the best
people doing Cx in a living,
you're gonna get more of that business, and
the only metric I'd leave that with is
today, the market's about a hundred and 23000000000
of which only 20 percent of its outsourced.
If I just maybe Max and I would
like, maybe... I don't know. 10 percent more
in that market would be making a lot
of us in this industry happy.
Which I think is what will happen. Mike,
more more of it will become are you
better at doing this for me than I
might be doing it for myself, or I
would like more of my people inside the
company to be the Nordstrom people, and I
want more of you to be these. That's
fine too. So I think that's the market
to be chased.
And I don't think it's a hand or.
I think it's a plus plus in all
cases.
You you... In in the middle of your
answer, you're you noted this this idea the
best tech ecosystem and developing that. And I
know as you think about the development of
ecosystem, a portion of what you're doing is
actually investing in a number of startups in
this space as well.
And I I wonder what do you look
for in companies that you invest in? And
to what extent is that are you thinking
about those investments in the balance between
potential great returns for the organization as those
companies succeed,
and or the possibility of actually becoming the
acquire of those businesses eventually.
Great question. And, I would love to say
I have every answer here. We figured it
all out. But if I did, I I
probably would be retired and and you'd see
a palm tree behind me. But way Max
and I think about this and and and
I have to include our our Chairman Andy
Lee.
So what we have is a fortunate model
where Max and are are running this company,
and and we've been humbled by the fact
we've got, you know, a hundred thousand people
globally that that look at us every data
strategize and figure out where Shin go.
At the same time,
there's a little bit of worrisome morale where
is this world going in terms of where
it is. So how do we get ahead
of that? Will we investment?
So Andy has a firm in Cairo, which
is a Vc firm. He's also got,
relationships with 2 other major Vc firms. I
have a relationship with some of the ex
Cognizant folks that run 1 of the larger
Bc firms as well. What we've created is
an ecosystem
where early stage investments can help fuel our
our engine.
And then how we think of that portfolio
is how do we be complementary
in our journey, given we're focused and tonight
I I repeat all, we're a Cx company
that digitally enables it.
But how does that lens get applied to
those layers of technology and then how do
we help enable that ecosystem?
For those early players to be, proving ground
and test ground, but also bring that to
clients
and say here's some things that are quite
frankly emerging.
But we would like to show you the
emergence of this as you think of these
journeys,
and see if they're helpful. And if they're
proven I e. Tested and they're there, then
we enabler of that ecosystem. So
that is our philosophy. We have invested
directly in a few that we feel are
very complementary.
The first is is really around the ability
for noise cancellation to be free.
In our industry,
much like in this discussion, background should never
be a problem.
That technology in itself, we invested in,
and it's being perfect protected as we get
more and more off stack. The second is
in dialect removal.
How do we make sure that the client
has the best experience should they choose to
want to use this technology in certain areas
and it also helps very remote
locations in the world be a labor pool
for us. We're very big on on investing
in our people and funding
our people in in our foundation. So we
use those as a way to enable,
geographic areas in the market labor pool that
we could pull in that would be helpful
or assist.
And then the real next big of investment,
I was in the ability to do translation.
I'm a big,
in my headset of strategy and basis of
a voice
I think technology 1 day
will remove the barriers of having phone calls
between nations.
It it will be embedded in switches. It'll
be embedded in applications. It'll be embedded in
cell phones. If you if you see Samsung
amazon, we've already done. Where you're having a
conversation,
like I said earlier on 1 end and
and you might be in,
slow back or Russian or
you know,
English on 1 side and this side of
yours is is is receiving English or Italian.
That is today's tech. I mean, it's perfect.
It's real.
And more of that is just about getting
the nuances by vertical industry.
So how do we put health things there
about acronyms and intact or how do we
look at if you're in, you know, some
of our retail or our entertainment spaces, gaming
and newer Nascar. How do we put those
words in that people would understand when you're
talking about times or, you know, anything that's
kind of nuance, but pure language is there
today. So that piece we've invested heavily in
partly enabled our global strategy,
but also, I think clients are starting to
realize
if this is really where the world will
go, and I always say to clients, there's
always being at the bleeding edge,
and the leading edge, and then the edge.
And I would love for them to listen
to me right now at the bleeding edge
and try some things. No production is fine.
When we get to the next level of
that edge, it's gonna start to become a
realization. Don't miss the opportunity to make that
pilot it something more invasive because eventually, it's
gonna be embedded everywhere and we're gonna have
to figure out how to use it. So
that's a place we're very excited about
and then the last piece is is really
our analytics and them informatics we're data guys.
If you think about what we do in
the billions of transactions, we do a year
for our clients,
we have more insights than anyone else in
the world about, what we could do differently
and make that world better. We should turn
those insights into, you know, in effect
assets,
and we started to do that for clients
now. Where we can start to think about
them mat,
you know, patents around
order tracking, order fulfillment reservation matching,
sentiment back into reservation, matching and hit rates
and
how we start to drive a revenue engine,
which is really what we care about is
the business sign. Right? You're not doing something
enables a business problem to be solved and
the work to be grown a company meeting
residue.
The the technology is not worth it. Don't
you have the discussion? Yeah. You you referenced
clients numerous times in in your response and
I know that your client set includes chief
customer officers or chief revenue officers depending on
how it's framed in an organization, chief operating
officers, cheap digital officers,
you've very specifically have held the first the
the the second and third rule is You'd
had many aspects of the of the first
role as well. And I wonder how useful
has it been to be able to speak
as a former peer to clients and customers
in many cases?
I actually had this discussion with Max and
copy yesterday exited it the way back to
the airport. It's really... It's it's a compliment
to me to be able to sit there
and say, well, as a Cio who's listening
to all Ai of the first thing I'm
thinking about is, how do I get the
skills to be competitive in this area so
that all the consultants that are about to
invade my company
have someone to talk to that can keep
up with them and know what we're being
told, you know,
part of it is the truth and 2
it can be done.
So I was always thinking as a Cio.
You know, we've you always had to be
leading the edge. And you you relied on
consultants as partners,
but you also a bit skeptical.
As a chief digital Officer, you you you
wanted all the ideas. So you're, like, tell
me what's going on. I wanna sponge and
I wanna get the best of them I'm
gonna pick my spots where Invest.
And in the business side on the P
and L,
you you really pitch the dynamic that Max
and I were talking about yesterday,
you really don't care how it happens. You
just want it to happen. Right? So you
you have all these people who care about
the widgets and how they're orchestrated and how
they glued together and know, and can they
can be done can be done in the
timeline? Is it enterprise and scale ready? And,
yes, there are lots of people. And I
was 1 of the or 2 of them
who should worry about this. Then when it's
funny when it gets to the business level.
It's like, this is my problem. I don't
care how you solve it just solve it.
Right? So all the efforts they went in,
it seems so
monumental and at the end, please. Just solve
this problem. It's an asset to me to
have had those skills and tap, but also
feels for the people on the other side
of the table because I kinda know, like,
oh, boy, You know, here here we go.
This is another another consultant speak per s,
around these things, and I'm like, we're we're
gonna be real. We're gonna try do stuff
to get... That matters.
But I'm, I'm, it's a luxury for me
for sure, but it's also quite fun.
That's super interesting. We've already talked about a
number of,
salient trends to a business like yours. You
talked about progression from Rpa to, that machine
learning Ai generative Ai, talked about other aspects
of customer experience,
and the the trends
associated with those as well. Anything else as
you look to the future mike that has
you particularly
excited whether it's tech trend or a business
trend or, of, the skills trend, whatever the
case may be.
I think there's there's a bit of a
spectrum that this
Ai world
started
6 or 8 years ago that I... I
still don't hasn't gotten to
the full maturity at the. I actually, I
was lucky enough to
spend a little time on,
5 or 6 years ago that I still
think when it gets there will be
will be the thing that matters. The the
trend I'm watching and the trend that I'm
in most interested in it is
the reason companies aren't adopting Ai at scale
and production is you're still the level of
compliance risk and security that has to be
thought through. We're talking extensive models and testing
and whether the validity to the answer is
correct today, that's just data and fusion into
Ai today. But that that's by I think
sort step 1.
There's sort of a secondary step of when
the model becomes smart enough and the bounds
and expense are tested, then I feel good
enough production, so we can handle my chat
or my Ai system or my virtual human
meta a human.
But then there's a sort of secondary piece
of this
where...
And years ago, 5, 7 years ago, was
called robots as a service. There's still an
industry out there that lives there.
There's a sort of brain that orchestrate a
number of transactions and the Ai become a
layer of these
these
us that go out and do their work
and come back and report back things are
done. It could be just automations of systems
and integration.
And then there's sort of another layer,
where Rpa became the thing, which was a
model and a process together. Right? So I
think the conversions that happens to make this
industry really what it would be and and
and version 4 got us a little bit
of integration on where, Gb went on version
4. But really where Think it's gonna be
quite interesting is when you start the orchestration
at process,
you can then handle the audit issues.
You can know audit to task,
and you know what a machine does, now
I can start to look at that audit
down to a process level. Now I now
I start to pass the hurdles of internal
adoption quite rapidly.
And then when I get to the next
level, which is sort of the neural network
level.
Where
the brain isn't just a brain. It's it
it's a level of nested processes to start
to think about orchestrating many complex things.
Now a company gets to a level of
what would be today's compliance risk and audit
practice around things to get things done, whether
financial processes are x doesn't matter.
I think that convergence
is when the
world explodes, and and this could be adopted
in mass mass scale.
And I still think we're early. We're still
teaching models. We're still
testing expense. We're still looking at validity. We're
tagging images we're labeling things. We're early.
But I think that
convergence conversion of that process hierarchy
network hierarchy
orchestration layer,
it then becomes what is tomorrow. And I
think
we have to think that way in our
Cx journey.
I think everyone has to think that way
in their systems orchestration.
And I think that will be where cloud
process and sort of Ai become it. And
I think the big players figured it out
now they're trying to figure out how to
put it all together and kind of a
common system,
or enable their system to do is for
a step 1. I think that's where it
will go. That that's stuff I love reading
about, I love
I love learning about and poking around
to see where it could possibly go for
us.
Thinking of reading and and learning.
I wonder if there's anything you've recently read
or washed and or listen to that you
particularly recommend to our audience.
Yeah So
so I'm a v gracious data in gist
guy. Like, I love to read. III
read, like, half of the book, and then
I start reading another half of another book.
So I probably have, like, 6 books in
play at takes time and partly the Ad
piece kicks in. But
The 1 book I I finished with Ceo
excellence, which is 3 Mckenzie Partners Wrote. And,
you know, when I was told this is
the job we we'd like you Max to
do. The first thing I always do is
turn to, you know, where can I ingest
a month large amounts of data to put
up to put a plan together, put my
head around the right kinda of thinking? And
I just have to reshape my head around
this new task in there. So that's been
something. 3 3 Mckenzie people cut, I I
like that book. It was very short, break
Chris, but it had a lot of great
examples
of,
a just dimensional thinking, how how problems were
broken down, you know, with really
you need to do for your company to
set the right path.
But I'm also a history buff. So if
you... If you... If there's a book by
We're ron Cher, call titans,
which I... You know, the Rockefeller World, though,
or if it was in Churchill hills world
I love the
the the world around Churchill show in terms
of what he fought in strategies, So those
are the ones I I am just quite
a bit. In addition to watching all of
your podcasts.
Checks in the mail, Mike.
Well, Mike Clifton and thank you so much
for taking a little time with me yet
again, and congratulations
again on your ascent to the c Ceo
role of Laura. Thanks so much for sharing
a bit about what's exciting you in this
role
the various aspects of your career that have
led to it and and the variety of
insights you shared through this conversation I'm so
grateful for it. Yeah. Thank Great. I'm grateful
for you having. I I... Thank you so
much, peter.