HR Tech Interview with Anand Subbaraj, Chief Executive Officer at Zuper

Every business needs to embrace and accelerate digital transformation to stay ahead of the curve. With this reality being a focus point for companies worldwide, Anand Subbaraj, Chief Executive Officer at Zuper joins us in this conversation to share a few thoughts:

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Tell us a little about yourself Anand…how has it been leading through the pandemic the last couple of months?

Prior to joining Zuper Inc. as CEO in July 2020, I came from a 13 year career at Microsoft and before that spent 5 years at Tata Consultancy Services. Throughout my time living in Seattle, I’ve worked with many large enterprise customers and helped organizations to take control of their digital transformation journey. At Microsoft, I was the head of product in one of the fastest growing Azure Data services and led the innovation in big data integration in Azure.

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      At Zuper, we’ve taken a 4-pronged approach to dealing with the COVID-19 situation

1. Addressed the immediate challenges and threats – Workforce, customers, technology and partners
2. Built resiliency to address the social and economic impact
3. Created a detailed plan to scale quickly as situation improves
4. Adopted and reimagined to the new normal

Our first priority as an organization was to ensure the safety of our employees. We have a strong work from home culture and the team has been super productive. Like any company, we were not immune to the effects of COVID but were fortunate to be able to actually double our team size during the pandemic. We proactively reached out to our existing customers to reinforce our commitment to business continuity and support. We also created a program for customer assistance and offered our services for free to customers who were struggling.

The pandemic has been a significant catalyst for digital transformation for all organizations irrespective of size or industry. Organizations with distributed and remote workforces are looking to accelerate their digital transformation journey to improve productivity and utilization and this has created tailwinds for us. We are seeing strong month over month growth and adoption.

Over the past 6-7 months, we’ve reimagined our sales and marketing processes to adapt to the changing behavior of our customers and this has yielded strong results.

Tell us about the Zuper workforce management platform- what are some of the new features / integrations being planned to meet changing needs during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Zuper is an AI powered intelligent workforce management & customer engagement platform that enables organizations to digitize, automate and optimize field and remote workforces. Organizations can now dispatch the right person to the right place with the right information at the right time, every time. With our white labeled consumer application, organizations can offer a modern service experience to their customers on the web and mobile.

Zuper offers an end to end suite for service businesses to attract and acquire customers, improve workforce productivity, engage and retain customers, and grow their business with actionable insights.

1. Zuper Connect is – A new video conferencing feature natively integrated into the product that enables businesses to provide seamless remote assistance to their customers without requiring a third-party tool. This is the most comprehensive video conferencing solution tailored to service businesses available in the market today.
2. With the new website builder with embedded booking , we enable service businesses to digitize and automate the customer experience.
3. Zuper COVID-19 Compliance Pack – is a new offering that enables businesses to follow protocols and compliance with smart screening of workforce and customers to create a safe environment for workforce, customers and the community.
4. Contactless experience with intelligent workflows – With intelligent workflows and end-to-end automation, Zuper enables organizations to offer contactless customer experience and adapt to the new normal with the right investment in technology.

How are you seeing new workforce management platforms evolve today; can you share a few thoughts on some game-changing products you’ve seen in this space?

 There are four new trends that are going to evolve the field service and workforce management:

1. AI and Machine Learning – Traditional FSM and Workforce management providers focused primarily on helping organizations to move from paper & pen to digital process flows. However, this is not enough. Organizations need to automate and optimize the workflows with intelligence based on past information and trends. This is where AI and Machine Learning will cause disruptions in the way both the service providers and the organizations are currently operating.
2. Remote Assistance – Organizations will take a critical look into the service calls that require a physical visit vs. handling it remotely. Organizations will invest in the right tools and technology that offers a seamless integration between remote assistance tools and physical visits to improve efficiency while still offering the best experience to the customers.
3. Consumer Self-Service – This is more important than ever. Organizations are looking to offer self-service booking, tracking, reviews and many more capabilities. This will offer a seamless customer support experience and improve efficiency. Self-service with conversational AI is a huge trend and will be the mainstream channel in years to come.
4. Enable Ecosystem – Organizations are looking to adopt best-of-breed solutions with fit for purpose tools & applications. There is a huge need to offer a seamless integration with popular applications so that it enables service businesses to achieve their goals.

Zuper is aligned with these industry and market trends. Continuous innovation, strong leadership and the right vision is differentiating Zuper from the rest of the products out there in the market.

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What are some of the core business needs that will drive growth in the development of workforce management platforms. How will this landscape shape up in the next few years?

There are five macro trends that are causing disruption in field service and workforce management solutions:

Customer Experience as a Competitive Advantage: In the competitive market of commodity services like home cleaning, plumbing, electrical, landscaping, etc. where consumers have choice, there are basically two ways to differentiate. One is on price (i.e. engage in a race to the bottom of pricing to win customers). The other is by providing a superior customer experience. This is critical in a time where frictionless experiences are table stakes and where customer satisfaction is critical – especially for SMB service businesses where word-of-mouth marketing, referrals, and positive online reviews can be a significant competitive advantage in both attracting and retaining customers.

Digital Transformation of Business and Operations: The idea of digitizing and automating processes that were previously managed in an archaic – even analog/pen & notebook fashion – are rapidly vanishing. This is true in banking, retail, healthcare, travel & hospitality and every industry. Service businesses specifically need to think about digital business strategies to both provide     superior customer experiences and to create greater operational efficiencies and collaboration for their field workforce.

 New Normal of COVID-19: The global pandemic has created an entirely new regulatory framework for businesses regarding sanitation, public health and safety for employees, customers and the community. As such, there is an increased need for digital solutions that enable businesses to manage their operations and meet new compliance norms within the context of new operating models that have emerged, and in many cases will continue post-COVID.

On-Demand Service Delivery: Uber completely changed the workforce management model. The introduction of the gig economy in combination with the modern customer experience has led to the evolution of the on-demand service delivery model. It is no longer a differentiator but has become the norm and every organization with a field and remote workforce are attempting to adapt to this change.

Continued Importance of Data & Analytics: Increasingly, data has moved from being a buzzword to a critical aspect of informed business decisions. While businesses today have more data than ever before, they need access to platforms that provide a single pane view of operations and reporting capabilities that enable leaders to quickly and easily digest data, harvest valuable insights, and use those insights to make important strategic or tactical decisions about customers, employees or the business.

This is just the beginning of the transition and the transformation. Organizations will mature and evolve in the journey from digitizing manual processes to automating workflows and then optimizing use of AI and Machine Learning. The goal of Zuper is to enable and empower organizations in this journey to improve efficiency, productivity and customer experience

What are some of the tips you would share with SMBs looking to adopt a new field workforce management platform?

SMBs are currently using about 5-8 tools to manage their field workforce and engage with customers. Many SMBs are struggling with the scheduling and collaboration of their distributed workforce. As a result, they are unable to offer the best experience to modern consumers.

        My tips to SMBs are as follows:

1. Onboard a platform that combines the power of customer engagement and field workforce management. This will enable SMBs to differentiate with stellar customer experience by creating an effective collaborative environment and maximum operational efficiency.
2. Identify a platform that enables a rich scheduling experience with manual and automated dispatching & routing. Scheduling is one of the most challenging aspects for SMBs, and the platform needs to improve efficiency, oversight and governance.
3. Select a platform that future proofs your business and helps you seamlessly grow without impacting your bottom line.
4. COVID-19 is an unprecedented situation that’s had a significant impact on SMBs. Identify a platform that enables you to embed compliance and policies to create a safe operating environment for your workforce, customers and the larger community.

Before we wrap up, we’d love to hear a little about the employee culture and experience at Zuper; how have your policies or practices evolved during this time to meet the Covid-19 business challenges?

      The leadership at Zuper has created an amazing company culture. There are four pillars of our company culture:

1. Growth Mindset – This is the most important pillar where every employee in the organization is encouraged and empowered to continuously learn and grow.
2. Accountability with OKRs – The organization has well defined objectives and key results at every level that is shared with the team. It is a great tool to enforce accountability.
3. Transparency – With accountability and OKRs comes transparency. The goals, projections, traction and the value proposition are all shared with the team.
4. Customer Obsession – Everyone in the team is passionate about customers and the majority of our product features are implemented with a customer mindset. Everyone in the organization has an opportunity to interact with customers and understand their pain points.
5. Diversity – 30% of the employees in our organization are female and it is an important objective of ours to create a healthy, diverse and inclusive company.

Zuper already had an amazing work from home culture even prior to COVID-19. The majority of
our employees adapted to the change positively and ensured business continuity for our customers.

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A few parting tips on what companies should keep in mind as they shape their strategies in 2021 amid the new normal?

My biggest piece of advice for companies shaping strategies for 2021 is to always be prepared for the unexpected. COVID taught us all that it’s very easy to get caught off guard when we haven’t considered or planned for – let alone started to implement the organizational or technological change required to maximize resiliency. Strategic planning today should consider what the world may look like in 5-10 years from a business, tech and customer perspective in terms of business models, revenue streams and end user experiences. This means embracing IT modernization now and adopting platforms and solutions that enable the greatest agility and flexibility as things change – even abruptly and unexpectedly.