Edgar Amaya with Accruent

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Scott. Welcome to the Industrial Talk podcast with Scott. MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go once

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again. Thank you very much for joining Industrial Talk. You industry professional. Thank you very much for your continued support of this platform that celebrates you industrial professionals all around the world. You are bold, brave, you Derek greatly, you innovate. You are changing lives, and you are changing the world each and every day, this market, this world is fast, and you guys are leading the way. All right, we're at a crew, and insight, San Antonio, Texas is the location right now, it's quiet. Just some food out, maybe some coffee, but it's quiet right now. Everybody's in the general session, except for Edgar. He's been on the program before. We're going to be talking about an update with AI and and stuff there AI and stuff. That's a great title. Yeah, stop. You could use it. Go right ahead. Copyright, All right. Good.

01:12

Cranking. Are you having

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a good conference? Apparently, you went to a great restaurant last night.

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Yes, I'm having a great time here with customers, with a lot of really great sessions, and the place, the place is just phenomenal. The food. We're just a few meters away from the river walk, which is fantastic. Yeah, looks very different at night than morning, so it compels you to be out there, despite the weather being a little bit it's

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sticky. It is. I we, we got in, I think, Saturday or something, and so we had to tootle around. And then, of course, you, you're wearing clothes, and you're walking around and you, why am I doing this? I gotta find a place to sit down and have a cup of coffee, exactly, before we get into that conversation, we need to just level set again. Edgar, give us a little background on who you are.

02:07

Yes, I'm the vice president of professional services and customer experience at a current which means that my team takes care of all new customers when, when they go into into the implementation of our solutions, but also, if you are an existing customer and you need to adjust anything that you have been using of our solutions, we do that for you. The other part of my responsibility is to make sure that we think about our customers from end to from start to end on the journey, and make sure that they have the best level of satisfaction with our service and products. So

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this particular insights, as crew and insights, it's a big deal for

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you. This is This is major this is something that I have been craving and counting the days to be here and see all the other customers and some of the friends that we have been working over the years here at insights.

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I always said this in the last interview, I'm so impressed with how Accruent really focuses in on the customers, gets their feedback, and that feedback, it's not a we're just sort of listening to you, but we're going to do our own thing. No, you actually listen and you figure out how to really helps solve the problems that customers are facing, and make any modifications and new things to your your Solution Suite. So 100% that's pretty cool. Yeah, I like it.

03:31

We are customer obsessed, and that's part of our values, and I'm

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gonna write that down. That's my notes. I'm writing customer obsessed, and you are, because all the conversations I've had is just everything always leads back to the customer. Yeah. So anyway, it seems like a success. This has been a great event. I've been very happy with it. Yes,

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it is. I'm very happy with the place, Scott, it's always great seeing you. I was very happy to see you as well. All Our conversations are always entertaining. All right, let's

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get on to the conversation now. Last time we spoke, that was last year Nashville, the Gaylord, which was huge, massive.

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Remember, we had a GPS to go from one place to another. If we wanted to meet each other, it was five miles away from you'd

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have to really, sort of wait, like, do I really want to go? Want to now, you know, that's going to require a lot of walking. But last time we spoke, you know, you gave a little summary of all the AI activities going on. It has only been a year, one year now the things like it's just it's changed dramatically. Give us the give us the lowdown.

04:46

Yes, it's it has changed so much in a way that exponentially quick. I think last last time we spoke, we spoke about the adoption and how I. Open the companies and organizations would be to look into this change that is so rapidly, with so many question marks in terms of privacy and data and the unknowns that this new technology brings with what we have seen since last year is that it's complementary to a lot of the tasks that are repetitive, but also give you a lot of insights to make smart decisions about your space, which is where I think I personally am very, very excited to see and learning with the conversations with our customer about how, how they can transform And you we utilize and and think about their spaces that are not for, that are not not fixed, that they can change over time based on the inside space and information, and potentially what AI can tell you and how you utilize your your your space. I was talking with the university yesterday, and they were telling me, look, we we manage 500 events, every request, every single day from our students. Oh, 500 a day, 500 events. It's a massive organization, massive campus, a massive dedicated team to manage all the student events. And a lot of that information goes through one person to make decisions on, hey, we're going to utilize this room right now for for a class, but then that space is going to be repurposed for a workshop, or it could be repurposed for a for for an event. There's in all of that happening within one day that goes right now through one person that is manually thinking about the space and trying to play Tetris with all the different requests that they're getting through, and trying to make sense in a better way that they can serve their students and faculty. Can you imagine a world where all of that is done through AI, where AI can tell you, Hey, Scott, you know you have five different requests this morning. You have all of this space that you're already have booked, and this is available for you. Here you go. This is how you can utilize just go and change it. Go serve your your students, and remove all the friction from day to day that causes all of that. So that's what that's the benefit of AI. Don't

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you think that AI, although it did, it's the shiny object today, doesn't it cause some distraction to like you really, have to say, Does AI really need to be applied here, or is that just something that's fluffy and you know, you know, it just Seems like it's an executive requirement, versus what really how it's being deployed in a meaningful way,

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if it's more of a hype, right? Yeah, yeah, it's you have to, you have to find the application for AI. AI cannot solve or replace your business processes or or the decisions that you make. Just leave it on AI, because it's trained based on data. However, it can be a full complementary option for you to be able to analyze quicker, make decisions quicker. I see AI being more of an extension of the individual on how they make those decisions, and the data that they have to be more productive rather than being replaced. I think you got to be careful with always with how quick this is going. But the models are maturing so much. Last year, I think when you and I were talking, we were talking about chat, GPT, 3.5 or four that, oh, yeah, right. Now, if you look at the models, they have advanced so much in every single aspect, video, data, training, it's incredible. It's incredible. And

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we're still sort of scratching the surface. I think we're still at the beginning of it, whatever it but there's some challenges that are are impacting, which is more macro is the power requirements of how to manage all of this processing, which is just an interesting conversation in itself. Yes, that that where that's a whole nother conversation. It's massive.

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Yeah, change management is going to take some time. It's going to be a challenge, for sure, yes, but how we see it is, it's, there's a lot of buzz around it, oh yeah, but there's a lot of goodness that is coming with it. And I think organizations have an opportunity right now to capitalize on the offerings of AI, because this is a pivotal time, in my opinion, this is coming at a time where you have to adopt a change, and being open to it can give you a lot of advantage in the market space. How

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do you deal with the customer's perspective of saying, hey, I want AI, I want it now, and I want my solutions to have this and this capability, because I see, because I've been on the internet and I've read about. And I think that it can help us be more efficient. How do you help the client and the customer on the journey of saying, yes, it's we are looking into it. We think the use case or the application is this way. How do you how do you work with the client on that?

10:18

Well, we're bringing them in the journey. That's one thing that I'm I love a current because of how we think about customers, not from a transactional standpoint, but they are with us. We have a very big focus on what we call voice of a customer. And Scott, you have probably seen all the different banners and and logos around the space here, saying, announcing something called a current space intelligence, which is a new solution that we're bringing to the market that has,

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yeah, I have to share with you. I thought when I saw space intelligence, you know where I was at. I was on the I was in outer space. And I thought, Oh, they're going to be in outer space now, but it's not, it's it's something very cool. But I just like,

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hey, mission accomplished, we did what we wanted to do with a name, provide, give it, give impact. Yes,

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so talk to us about that.

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It's a fascinating solution that came through an idea that was born from what the customer was telling us, and that idea actually materialized into something that our product management team and our strategy came to realize that, yeah, this is a need in the market, and how we went about it was we started with baby steps where we brought our customers and we tell, hey, look, this is our idea.

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I have to interrupt what was the need in the market?

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The need in the market is to have a better understanding on how you use your space, and that only comes with you knowing how much utilization you're having, what experience your your team is having utilizing that space. And there's a plethora of data out there that you have to make sense of it to be able to make those day to day decisions. And our current space intelligence is basically able to enable you to make those decisions through AI, through smart information, through a very visual, modern look and feel. On how you think about that space that connects through other solutions. So think of a current space intelligence, the place that brings everything together. We have lucernes, we have EMS, we have lease management solutions, the police administration solutions, workplace management solution, a current space intelligence just brings everything together in a way that is so easily digestible for you as a user to make those decisions on how you can use the space. I

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was hoping you would continue on a little bit as I was drinking my coffee. Sorry. Dead air, but so so in that case, there's space intelligence. You're saying that I can look at my square footage. I can see how it's being utilized. I can make decisions on Well, it's not being utilized over here. Let's consider some other options over here. Whatever might be the decisions that need to be made, we're getting a lot of use over here. Maybe we need to expand that's that seems to be like an ongoing analysis of your property to try to optimize the use right? 100% you

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describe perfectly the mission of current space intelligence, that's what it is. It's utilization space, day to day decisions. It's structured in a way that you can optimize how you use your capital, how you use your spaces. And you know, when you enter an agreement for, for, for a physical space, they're typically long term agreements, you have to make sure that you are utilizing that space in the best way possible. And that's what a current space intelligence does. So

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with the the AI, what I have heard within accrued has been, has been connected solutions. But you have to be nimble enough to also bring in, also the AI conversation into not just the space intelligence, but but all of the other solutions on how to apply AI. How does, how does something like in accrued evaluate. I mean, it's got to be monumental. It is, in addition to all of the other stuff that you're doing with your solutions, like, you know, making it better over here. And it's not just AI, it's, it's now we can do XYZ. We're pulling in this data. We're making these How does, how does something? Be just in accrual it take customer information and then try to really process it with all the other stuff going on. I don't know how

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you do it. Well, it's a two fold thing, two fold strategy. One is going back to what I was alluding to before, Voice of customers, extremely, extremely, extremely fundamental to everything that we do on a daily basis. And during this conference, there's a lot of conversation happening around, what are we doing for, for the new products and 25 and everything? But we're also having customer conversations around, this is, this is what we're our strategy. This is our product. This is our intention in collecting that feedback the market talks to us on a daily basis, and we do that through the brilliance of many of our customers that are here in the conference and this over the next few days, this is exactly one of our biggest goals. Is, how can we bring the bridge between what customers have and the solutions that are available in market closer to solve the problems that they have. A big part of what Richard opened up the conversation yesterday was a we're here to solve your problems. We're here to be better every day. And the reason why I love that is because it gives you an approach that you're not satisfied with what you have right now. There's always something to improve. There's always something that you can do better. And that comes into play how we think about our solutions, how we think about our services, how we think about the problems, the problems that we don't know, that are out there, that we need to understand and help solve, and that's what we do. I love that aspect of of a current because we think about problem solving in a way that is consistent, and we're never satisfied with with the status quo. How

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do you look back with the customer? Because one of the things that I would be as a customer, I want to see if you listen to me, that you heard me. Not every suggestions that come from customers might be top priority, might be very niche to their needs. How do you how do you manage that communication process? It's,

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a space intelligence solution. Again, when was it formally released?

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It's, it's effectively the second half of the year. So it's now available, and we have some of some demos out here with with the team. It's now available, and some of our customers are starting to use it in the pilot. So it's very exciting, very exciting time, right? So it's brand new. Yes,

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it's got a new coat of paint on it. It does. So Wow. How do people get a hold of you there? Edgar?

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Many ways. LinkedIn, always available. But you can also reach out to me. My email is Edgardo. Come, always happy to connect. We'll

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have all the contact information for Edgar out there. So fear not. It'll be LinkedIn, it just will be. So that's how we operate. On anyway, connect with him. That's must. There's a lot happening at adequate as you can tell, as you can tell by Edgar's got a lot of passion. He comes bouncing in. He's got a lot of energy too. He was out late last night enjoying some good food, but he came in all energized. That's how he was. That's a killer, right there. All right, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

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You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.

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Yeah, Edgar never disappoints. That was a great event at that Accruent Insights, absolutely wonderful event. What was just fantastic about it was just this, this desire to collaborate. I say it all the time. I. Need to come up with a better word, but it really is. You see how Accruent Team Accruent working with the customers, and they were just really into trying to solve the challenges that they have today. It was really a wonderful event, a must attend. So if you find time in your calendar to be able to attend a crew in size for next year, do so you get people like Edgar, fantastic. All right, we're building a platform that is dedicated to you. Industrial professionals. Be a partner. Go out to Industrial Talk. You have a podcast. You want to highlight your technology. Make it happen. Be bold. Be brave. Dare greatly. Hang out with Edgar. Change the world. We're going to have another great conversation coming from a crude inside shortness. So stay tuned.