Hartmut Hahn with Userlane

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

process, software, industrial, technology, people, conversation, solution, user, lane, erp, company, engagement, means, create, software stack, great, platform, organization, podcast, salesforce

00:04

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 get

00:21

all right Greetings, and welcome to Industrial Talk the number one industrial related podcast in the universe that celebrates industry professionals all around the world. You know those story you are bold, brave, you dare greatly you innovate, you collaborate, you solve problems each and every day. And that's why we celebrate you on this incredible platform. Yeah, I'm pretty bullish about it. We're talking to in the hot seat, a gentleman by the name of Hartmut Hahn, the company is Userlane. And we're going to be talking about that solution, because you need to hear about this, let's get cracking. Great solution. So it ventures into that category of, okay, I've got technology, I've got technology that I'm trying to use to make my company better to make my business more efficient. And I'm collecting information, and I'm doing everything that I possibly can to to be a success. But the real rub is the fact that one, maybe people are not using it the way they need to use it. Maybe they're a little frustrated. And if as an executive, you need to know this. So here's a platform Userlane, that allows you to have that type of insights into how people are using those platforms, and are they getting the most out of it? Are you extracting the value that you so need? That's it's, it's a great conversation, which then leads me to another conversation. And I want you to take note, because we are just so dedicated to you industrial companies, individuals, people, whatever you might want to say, We want you to succeed, you have to succeed, it's an obligation for you to succeed. And that's why Industrial Talk is here. And the reason for this is that one we want a platform. Industrial Talk is a platform that you can go to and find answers. Right? Then, one, if you have a podcast that you're you want just greater exposure, some increased traction, awareness, attention, and you have a podcast, put it on Industrial Talk, let me know, let's collaborate, let's figure it out. The reason is, I want everybody to be able to just go to Industrial Talk, get answers, reach out to you, and get solutions that are needed. That's what Industrial Talk is all about. That's one, two. The other thing that Industrial Talk provides, of course, is the platform. But it's there's technology, especially now everywhere. That is that that needs greater attention, that greater awareness. And if you have a solution that you want to amplify, put it on Industrial Talk, that allows me and my team to promote your solutions to promote your podcast to promote the technology. It's it's if you know, app Sumo, then you understand that there is this need to be able to do that, and to be able to increase that exposure. So Industrial Talk is just strictly that it is a way of being able to increase the attention to your solution, and bring opportunities to you to be able to sort of solve their problem, whoever is their problem is like in the case of Userlane, right? There is a challenge out there with companies that are not getting the full value out of their technology stack. Why? Well, Userlane provides the ability to create that insights into the why. And then be able to create the strategies around that to be able to say, Oh, do this, do this, do this tangible, tangible stuff to be able to increase that attention? Technology, we need to do more with less. We need to be able to leverage that technology. We need to do it in a way that makes sense. Because we here at Industrial Talk want you to succeed. We just do. So that's my that's my soapbox. So there's three things. One, you want to be on the podcast who Let me know go out to Industrial Talk, you have a podcast and existing podcasts, and you want to be able to create greater attention, greater traction, awareness, go out to Industrial Talk, talk to me about it and see how we can collaborate. And then thirdly, if you have a technology that you want people to know about, and it provides and solves problems, you need to let me know. So that you can be out on Industrial Talk, and be able to say, check this technology out, this is what you need to look into. And then create opportunities for you. Everything goes back to you. So that's that's it. Take it for what it's worth, take it to the bank, Industrial Talk is for you. All right, Hartmut. That's H A R T m u t. Han. The company is Userlane. And of course, I just spoke about what they do. But he's going to expand upon it. Matt technology, you need to look into this. So let's get cracking. Heartburn, how you doing? Welcome to Industrial Talk you having a good day.

06:11

Perfect days, God, great to be here.

06:14

Okay, listeners, we're going to be talking about a solution. And you know, this is a solution that helps extract greater value out of your, your digital transformation solution. I don't know how that happens. Because I know that there's a stat here that's in his questionnaire that 45% of enterprise software packages delivered the expected that means the other 65 Don't so which is, which is definitely the case. I'm interested. But before we get into that conversation, Hartmut give us a little background on who you are.

06:55

I'm the CEO and founder of us, ln we are Europe based out of Munich, Germany. software company, has been around for about eight years, and work with mainly large enterprises. And obviously being based in Germany, you're very close to everything industrial and manufacturing, when it comes to Oh, yeah.

07:16

Let me let me ask this question. With that said, Can I use your platform and this is jumping ahead a little bit, because I want to make sure that we start to state the problem, but I'm just if I'm a company, and I've already had my, my ERP my digital solution in place for a number of years, can I jump in and say, using ln helped me I am still dealing with some sub optimal, you know, efficiencies with it, can I just or it doesn't have to be truly Greenfield and new.

07:53

Now actually, like the 95% of cases where we come in companies have like, already, like a boss stuff their landscape. Yeah, but have little idea about like a, what people actually using and how good they're using it. So like the more software using, like, the better for us to

08:12

see, that's great, because then all that pain sinks in a little bit. Let me ask you this to add in the world in the way that technology is evolving and changing. Is that I mean, is Userlane flexible enough to be able to also adapt? Because things are changing, like digital transformation. Now I've got devices out there now I'm pulling data off it. Yeah. Now. Now I'm pulling in I'm using AI or whatever some machine learning, you know, but is that also the case? Yeah,

08:45

that's also the case. Like for us, we are setting like we're basing our attack on browser, browser software. That means like, as long as your software runs in a browser, we can basically analyze it and see what people are using where they struggle, and then basically give you the tools to like make it easier to use oil if your people. Okay,

09:04

so now that we've sort of established that, give us a little sort of overview on what the problem is, what are we dealing with outside of the fact that I've already tripped on it, but I want to hear what you have.

09:16

Absolutely no problem. The problem is quite simple. Have you ever worked in a large organization? You like understand that companies, especially large companies are very good at like buying software? That means they're buying like hundreds of different software solutions for all kinds of use cases? Yeah. And especially like in the past few years, everybody got a credit card saying like, hey, you need a new project management tool. By this you need like a check GBT subscription by that. And problem is companies also sometimes are like, quite okay, in paying consultancies. We've talked about that before, like implementing those solutions. So everything is there, everything is implemented. The biggest problem is nobody's using it. or not using it correctly. And that's exactly the problem we're tackling. Because if you are like working in a large organization, you expect it to like, from one day to the next, there's like an ERP redesign a new process and expense management. And you're just sitting there, you want to do your job, but you have like, no idea how to do it, try to go on YouTube, look for like videos that explain it to you, and basically do everything, but the job you're paid to do. And yeah, in the end, I like if you're a company, you want your people to actually do what they pay them to do not to trying to figure out like complex processes and software. And when we do, quite simply, we can analyze your whole software stack. First of all, we can tell you which software your people actually using. Because sometimes, like, people are using software, and you don't even don't even know that they're using it, like people like imagine you have like people working on like something confidential, confidential, and like they're entering like questions and chat UBT. And you might not want basically that confidential information to go like into a random AI engine, right? Which is, which is like kind of crazy. And then we can tell you also like where people struggle, that means we can tell you, Hey, you're no. And your review process is broken, nobody really completes it. And once you know what's broken, we give you tools to fix it, like create interactive guide tooltips directly into software as an overlay. So people then actually understand what they need to do, and actually productive.

11:37

How does that happen? So let's say I have some web based solutions. And I I, Mr. Executive, thinks that people are using the tools that are in place to be able to make my business run efficiently getting the information that I need to make tactical and strategic decisions. I'm doing everything but but I'm just not there. I feel something. How does how does Userlane, sort of evaluate that how it's still sort of that? Like, what's that user use case?

12:12

Yeah. So basically, what you described is exactly like when we come in, most of the time, as an executive, you have like some sort of gut feeling that things aren't running as smooth as possible. But it's most like anecdotal, that means Yeah, you talk to people, someone complaints, like, Oh, I hate that process. Yeah. Or like, I don't know what to do. And you hear like, all those anecdotes, but you have like no data to actually make, like a decision to fix something to like, train people there or like, just switch off an application because nobody's using it. And what we do is basically, usually technically runs as a browser extension. And we can track every interaction from every employee and every software, but we do it anonymously. So I don't care if it's Scott doing a process, or if it's Hartmann, I just care about like, hey, this this process, or is the software being used. And what we then do is we take all these vast amounts of data, run them through like some, like machine learning, pattern recognition, and interpreted across five dimensions from we basically established a framework there, we call it harch. And it's an acronym. It's like happiness, engagement, adoption, retention processes, give you a score for every software. And then you can see, for example, oh, on Salesforce, I'm at a 60 out of 100. And, and on Oracle, I might be on a 25. Yeah. And then you can like, dive in and see like, Okay, what's wrong with like, my Oracle implementation? Where do people struggle

13:53

do because every organization is different. And they might use Salesforce in a way that, you know, Acme doesn't use it that way, they use it this way. And everybody uses the the platform in a different way. Do you establish some sort of baseline process of what they need to do, and therefore find the gaps? That exists? Like, okay, you're supposed to go here, here, here. And then, you know, generate a report or whatever, but then you see the processes. You go here, then here, and then you jump off and you go some wherever you go. You don't know, how do you do that?

14:37

Basically, there are things we can measure automatically, like how often people log in how much time they spent in the software, how much data they enter, this is like the same across every organization. Processes are always different. So what our customers do, they basically really map out processes. That's really easy to do plug in, you know, code, you basically set up a few tags within your process. For example, If you have like a process you'd like set to marks that like the start of the process and when the middle and at the end, and then we can see how many people kick off the process. And how many people finish it, and where they drop out. So basically, this is where our customers would then spend, I think, like in their implementation phase rescue hours and mapping out their processes. Yeah. And then we can click that.

15:26

Is that is that conversation map out province? Because I'm a big process mapping guy, because I think that if you nail that, and you get the right people in the room, and you, you know, debate saying, No, this is where they need to go, No, this is the this is what needs to be generated, and so on and so forth to be able to have that that conversation. I would imagine that, in itself has tremendous value, just to do that. Just like, Oh, I didn't know we'd supposed to do that, you know, that type of

15:58

100%. For us, like the process mapping part is we do it like, our focus is to be broad, that means our focus has to be like on every application in our software stack. That means in terms of like process mining, or like task mining, obviously, you can also invest in a specific software that goes really deep into like analyzing specific processes, step by step. For us, we're going on a high level. So that's very fast to like, map out your processes, and then detect like, hey, maybe on that process, something is really broken. And if you want to then dive deep into that process, you can work with one of our partners who do process mining, and who could then provide like a specific software, it goes like really deep and tell you exactly what's wrong. We are more the guys to tell you, hey, is there something red, green or yellow? Yeah, if there's something red, you better do something about it. If there's something green, you can ignore it. And if something's yellow, but and monitor it and see if it gets better or worse.

16:58

Is it a constant monitoring is it's the once once we ask this question, so I say I'm, you know, Mr. Executive, once again, I think that something's going on, I have nothing to back it up, I just have a feeling. And I contact Userlane. And how quickly can I have something up and running to give me the green, yellow, and red dashboard indication?

17:26

I think like, four weeks is a good time. We have also customers that like my life in two weeks. But normally, I would say like four to six weeks is healthy. And yes, it's a constant monitoring, because processes change all the time. Yeah, you might introduce, like a new module might introduce like a new feature that is released and you want to know like, Hey, is that feature adopted? Are people actually using it? They're just ignoring it.

17:52

It would have seemed to me that the process to well, if it's if it's ongoing, I would be obsessed over it, quite frankly, I would constantly look and be identifying the red and trying to figure out and rooting those red things out. And if there's a yellow one, and so on and so forth. Do you have that conversation on determining what is considered yellow and green and all that stuff? With me, Mr. Executive?

18:19

Yeah, at the beginning, we do basically a calibration. And we ask you, for example, like, hey, how many Salesforce licenses do you have? And then you can

18:27

conciliate I challenge you, they have a gazillion and they don't even know it?

18:33

The right answer is always like too many. We can basically see like, okay, hey, you have 500 licenses. But let's say only, I don't know, 300 Login every month. And out of like those 300 Maybe 50 Only login once a month. Typically the executives like me who is like is a CEO. Yes, I technically have like Salesforce access. But normally I get all my Intel it basically slides from it. Yes, guys. Yeah. From the sales leadership. Right? Yeah.

19:06

So with that, we're, let's say, best case scenario, six weeks, I'm up and running. I'm, I've had this conversation we we've calibrated. We've, we've done a great job with our process mapping. So we feel pretty good in that whole process. Is there a time when when you've got your technology stack and you realize that out of 125% We don't use any more, we don't need any more and we're paying money for that and we don't need to.

19:40

Yeah, that's also like one of our use cases. Normally what happens is like to realize a you're paying for software that you're not using. b What also happens is like, we didn't realize you're paying for like 10 different project management tools. Because like there's so many out there in the market and the one team says Like, Oh yeah, I really like this one, the other one pays for that. So if you want to do like some vendor consolidation and say like, Hey, I want everybody, maybe on those two, this is also something we're realizing Yeah. And then you realize, holy shit, I didn't even know we were like paying for that. Or like anybody's using that. And this is sometimes like those, Shadow IT, where someone is like using unauthorized software, which can, if you're basically having to like certifications like sub two, technically, you have to list like, those kinds of things. And you have to like, test and like validate that all the software products, you're using a secure and safe. And if you can't guarantee that the drill into problems, and we can help you also, like identify that,

20:46

it's just, it's just, at a minimum, it seems like a wonderful exercise in getting a handle on your technology stack. I can't imagine I can't communicate it enough in such a way that I know that there are organizations out there that just have tons of just inefficient technology in their portfolio, it just does. And then and then then then you start to talk about the consistencies of reporting, like, you know, I get this report, and it has this and I get that report, and it has something different and, and so on, there's no consistency across that. It just seems like it would be great. Data minimum great exercise to do just to get a good view of what's what's happening. So I use your solution, user line, I get a great handle on what's happening in my organization. And what can I expect? Can I just root out inefficiencies right? In a sense?

22:00

In the first sense, what do you do is like you optimize your software spend. That means like, you can basically say some costs are like license applications no one is using. The second thing is a second step is you will realize there is some business critical software that people are not using correctly, you don't want to basically switch out your ERP, because that is painful.

22:26

Even even the hair on the back of my head neck just like not

22:31

like ERP or CRM migration is like if you can avoid it, avoid it. Yeah. And so the question was rather, okay, how do you get people to use it, right. And there are a few things you can do. There are things in the application, there are things outside of the application, inside of the application, we can help you because like with our browser extension, we can like let you create interactive hub content, like a mini copilot inside of your ERP or CRM that helps people use it with like interactive step by step guides, but tooltips with announcements where you can say like, Hey, buddy, look at that new process. And like, and have hints there to like guide people through it, that is an app. And that is something you can also do with like the second part of our product, they always say we have like the understand part of the product, which is like an analytic suite, which is what we talked about. And the second part is like the engagement suite, where you can like create engaging engagement content directly in the app, to like help people complete processes and, like, lower frustration. And this is something obviously you can like, do directly with us. But if for example, people are not logging in the first place, you can do like things outside of the Userlane, for example, do like work with a consultancy, to like get motivation engagement up and increase the employee experience.

23:54

I like it. I do I like that a lot. And I would imagine you have that conversation with with the team and saying, Hey, there's no engagement here in this particular area of the application stack or whatever software stack. And is it important? They say yes, it is. Okay, then I can create some sort of an engagement solution in that saying, hey, now, now you're here. This is you know, I like that. Well, that that sounds really pretty cool. Because you need the technology to succeed. But if you're not you, oh, what a mess. This is great. I like this a lot. Where do you see it going outside of what we've already talked about, what what? What's the next sort of thing on the horizon?

24:50

Obviously CEOs always think like one or two years ahead, and for me, the next interesting thing is going into predictions. That means for example, you has to go into. If you're thinking about implementing, like a new module of your ERP or CRM, we could predict how that will pan out. Based on like, let's say like the ability of your organization to adopt new technologies, for example, if we see like, hey, all of your ERP products, your people are struggling with it, maybe not the best time is your introduce something right now? It will just like, create a huge mess. Yeah, right now, first clean up, like the things you have, get the engagement up there. And maybe wait half a year, a year before, like you introduce the next thing. So going a little bit into like, the whole predictive world. Yeah. On how new like releases or features will impact your productivity?

25:50

Yeah, I liked that a lot. I liked that a lot. And so what I, what's in my head, I see that that usually gives us real overall picture of, of user adoption, are we getting the most out of the platform? What? That's great. And then, then you you make that more efficient? And then you get people to do that more engagement. And then now you're predicting? I think it's a no brainer. I do. I think that's great, just because I had a conversation with another gentleman about just just an inefficiency, just innate, just the amount of inefficiencies that exist within technology today, in organizations, it's trillions of dollars is just insane. Hit it. And nobody could sit there and say, well, that's just poppycock. Everybody knows that it's inefficient. Everybody knows. I like it.

26:55

And the interesting thing is, like, five years ago, so when the economy was different, nobody really cared. Everybody was just like, hey, buy more technology. Yeah. Now people are like, Okay, before we spend like the next 100 million on like, random tech, let's just see what the billions and billions we're spending on right now what they actually deliver, I land. This is basically where we said we were cracking up. I

27:21

love it. I love that. Yeah, well done. Kudos to use your light, heart, but how to, if if somebody wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way to get a hold of you?

27:33

Obviously, use Lean website, you can contact us directly there. Other than that, always like feel free also to directly reach out on LinkedIn to me. Very easy to find, are usually not that loving man.

27:48

This is great. That's a great conversation. I loved it. All right users. And let's see your users now. All right, listeners, we're gonna have all the contact information for hardmode out in dust real talk. So fear not reach out, this is a great solution, you need to check it out. All right, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned, we will be right back.

28:08

You're listening to the Industrial Talk, Podcast Network.

28:18

Hardware, hot Userlane company. Excellent. about that for a conversation. I really enjoyed that conversation. Reach out to them. I know you're not getting the greatest value out of your technology stack. And you just keep on adding to it just like we painted that picture. It's happening. I've experienced it. Get the most vigor out that solution. Userlane definitely is the company to collaborate with. Go out to user labor.com. All right. To reiterate, you have a podcast. Stick it on industrial. You have technology. Let's talk about it on Industrial Talk. Go out to Industrial Talk. Reach out to me. Antonia I'm warm and fuzzy. I'm cuddly. I'm not gonna make it just brutally and intense. We need everybody to succeed. And that means get that message out. That means to amplify it that means to put people together that solves problems. Be bold, be brave, dare greatly hang out with Heartland change the world we're gonna have another great conversation shortly so stay tuned.