TCG identifies a process automation need in the US market
Interview with Bob Fresneda, TCG US CEO
Please tell us a little bit about your background both personally and professionally.
My father was with General Electric for 40 years, which helped me to understand loyalty and adaptability at an early age. As a young child, I adapted to our regular cross-country moves for my father’s job. He was willing to relocate frequently because he remained loyal to GE and to supporting his family. When we finally settled down, it was in New Orleans. I have now been in love with this city and its people for most of my life -- even when my career took me to other places. It is always exciting when a global software company offers me an opportunity to create a US base for operations here, while supporting global strategies. For me and many of the New Orleans people I’ve been fortunate to work with, it’s a dream come true.
Historic New Orleans is the location of TCG’s US Headquarters
I bring up adaptability and loyalty because those two values are key to my time in this industry. I was fortunate to have a leadership role in the early days of Wheb Systems; our product was named Captiva and when we merged with Formware the company Captiva was formed and the product still exists under that name today! I was also part of the early development of ReadSoft for many years until the eventual sale of the company and in both of these companies I found it was team loyalty that held us together and allowed us to be successful during the tough times creating this market. Those two companies did well because we, as leaders, demonstrated these two values.
You must be loyal to your employees and your customers for win-win outcomes. The speed with which software markets change means adaptability is always needed.
Commitment to these values ensures the partnerships between the customers, the employees and your company remains a success. Many companies preach this but not all live it; we lived it to get those companies off the ground and successful.
My whole career has been spent working to improve the way companies manage data - both getting data into an organization and managing the flow of data once inside. I really enjoyed the role of leading the US team (and eventually global teams) at ReadSoft for 16 years, growing that business from infancy to maturity. My plan is to work just as hard and to hopefully be even more successful at TCG due to the network I’ve built and the lessons I have learned.
As an employee who was fortunate enough to actively participate in the start-up-to-acquisition path with companies, I have reflected quite a bit on what I’ve learned about loyalty and adaptability. Those special experiences exemplified teamwork and a spirit of fairness whereby everyone attempted to make the best decisions for the group.
How was that background important to TCG and this role?
I’ve enjoyed being a part of teams - and leading them - my entire life. If you do something you enjoy, you improve your chances of success, right? Understanding the importance of teamwork whether in sports, at home or in the office has shaped my work significantly.
My background at Captiva, ReadSoft and recently as a consultant at Automation Anywhere taught me how important an organization’s people are to its success. I had a few short runs in my career with companies that struggled when they failed to support internal teams, and this re-confirmed the importance of treating good employees well. Often when companies operate with a single goal of acquisition, it comes at the expense of its customers, partners and employees.
I’ve been fortunate to work with great people, which kept my priorities in the right place; my goal was to ensure everyone grew together along the way. As technology evolved from capture to process automation, the team evolved too. We learned that capture alone has always been a tough sale because all it does is replace the simple part: data entry. You can pay people in other countries to enter the data if all you want to do is to lower your data entry costs. If you eliminate the paper, create an electronic image, reduce manual tasks like data entry and document handling, and streamline or automate the process to completion, you are doing so much more than capture or data entry.
To do this successfully, you need to have some well thought out process capabilities both in your technology and in the minds of your people. You are solving real business, mission-critical challenges for some of the coolest companies around the world.
Companies like TCG understand this. Some technologies, like those from ReadSoft, focused on a single process (in this case accounts payable) and did it really well. But – wow – what I have seen at TCG can be used for almost any process managed by a Shared Service Center or BPO. Whether the process starts with receiving unstructured data from paper or from different channels like email, web portals or social media, TCG can manage the data and the process. It does so with the same flows, approvals, rules, validations and exports to any system. This is the first time in my career I have had the ability to market or sell a platform this robust and powerful.
So, you have this powerful platform now available for the US. What do you have to do first to be successful in this large and very competitive market?
FOCUS. We must be focused, we can’t be everything to everyone. TCG is making the right technology and platform investments, and Arnold and Patrick have been laser-focused on what it takes to be successful from a technology standpoint. Their work is impressive, and it’s been fun to share with prospective partners and customers. The excitement is contagious.
With that foundation, we can now focus on sales, marketing and distribution for specific use cases that fit Shared Service Centers, BPOs, insurance companies, and banks. I will focus on identifying partners to lead the path in certain industries like government and health care.
Since I joined TCG, we have hired an amazing product evangelist for the US - he’s a former colleague - who will also work as the platform product manager with the development team in Switzerland. Hiring this new person is key to helping us focus. Honestly, now that the word is out I’ve joined TCG, many people from the industry are reaching out to be a part of the growing team.
Please give us your thoughts on the platform. What are its unique aspects and why is that important for your market?
I don’t want to share the full platform story, but TCG published a blog post about it recently. One of the unique things about the TCG platform that I learned from Arnold, Sixto and others is that just talking about it does not do it justice. When they actually show prospects, customers or partners a few examples, allow them to see how we solve problems, you can just watch their ideas light up the room!
This platform was built from the ground up to ensure customers and partners have the adaptability and modernization they need for critical processing tasks now and well into the future. In this large US market, customers have learned that cobbling together technology from multiple vendors can be a challenge both in deployment and support, and often doesn’t solve their challenge in a smart way. Even better, this solution - unlike others in the market - is not built from trying to string together software acquisitions and multiple development theories and organizations. We have all seen that in the industry and quite frankly the results are not very impressive.
This platform development was well thought out, funded and executed with a strong vision of what was needed for customers and partners to be successful. TCG loves and respects its competition, and welcomes any side-by-side comparison testing of our platform against anything on the market.
How were you introduced to TCG and what excited you about the company and the chance to lead the US team?
Arnold was talking to one of our industry consultants, Harvey Spencer, on TCG’s plans for international growth, and Harvey recommended that Arnold and I talk about the future of TCG in the US. Arnold then did his homework on me by checking with industry veterans like Jan Andersson, the founder of ReadSoft. I was fortunate enough to have a great working relationship with Jan for many, many productive and fun years.
I knew Arnold and Sixto from their days at DICOM and Kofax and heard great things about Erwin from his time at Kodak. I was intrigued by this team, and the international growth plans that they successfully managed at DICOM, Kofax and Kodak. The implementation plan they described for TCG’s expansion was exactly how I thought businesses should grow. TCG was a fit in technology, business, culture and people – and so I decided to join.
The modern architecture and deployment options in the TCG platform, which combines capture, workflow, RPA and process automation functionality, drives a large market segment. This got me really excited, as the best way to sell capture or workflow is when it is part of a process.
Technology is one thing but the international model I felt was strongly aligned with my experience: TCG stands up organizations around the world to support the cultural differences in both processes and business. It’s a model everyone should be part of at some time in their career. A “one team, one vision” focus allows each country manager to take the corporate team vision and adapt that into the local cultures and needs of each country or region. When I’ve seen it done best is when organizations have strong international alignment but allow for execution close to the customers.
What unique challenges will TCG being a European company bring to you and the US team trying to compete against American companies?
Competing in the US is tough no matter where your headquarters are located. The US market makes demands on software companies that most markets don’t in terms of volume, modernization, usability, and scalability. The good news for TCG is that the German market (where we started selling the TCG platform) is just as demanding for perfection, execution and reliability. In many ways the German market tests you harder than the US market and often brings technologies as close to perfection as possible.
Two other aspects which work in our favor: US companies want to buy the best no matter where it originates, and many US enterprises need to support their own international operations.
How do you plan to compete against the larger, established companies in your market?
We are going to do what I have done my whole career, which is to stay adaptable while remaining loyal to our employees, customers and partners. We will be focused, with a “work hard, play hard” mindset, and we will take great care of the people that want to be part of this special TCG team. This is unique.
In the end, people buy from people they like and trust. There are so many fantastic people in this industry that have extensive knowledge of both the technology and the processes who want to work in a win-win environment. I know recruitment will not be a challenge. The people that made many companies in this space successful, before mergers and acquisitions took over, want this type of culture. Kind of an “if you build it, they will come” approach.
I realize this is a long-winded answer to your question. Here’s the short version: we will compete because we already have great people, we will welcome more great people and we will take really good care of everyone. The people that work at TCG will not work only for a paycheck, PTO or a 401k; they will work here because they make a difference and are respected by leadership and their colleagues. As I said earlier, we will be focused on making quality products and fostering good communication.
What do you think is the next major trend in business process automation that people should be paying attention to today?
We have all seen the need for digitalization for many years. With the additional need to work in a decentralized manner, digitalization of information and processes are more important than ever. I don’t see the need to automate receding with or without global pandemics. Business processes need to be automated no matter where employees are located.
In addition to the business benefits, I think we’ll see that this helps our people to maintain a better work/life balance. The technology trend to make it happen is, in my opinion, a combination of [RPA] bots and people.
I am a big fan of the real-life benefits that can be seen when combining bots and people to execute a process. Bots can learn, like someone standing behind you during training, from a user’s day-to-day actions and from the artificial intelligence (AI) built into the TCG platform. This automated learning avoids expensive training efforts and means our customers can achieve the highest level of automation in this industry with the lowest possible internal costs.
But honestly those trends that truly gain speed are those that help to benefit humankind as a whole. What I truly hope to see in my career is employees maintaining a better work/life balance, so people can really enjoy their time on this planet. Your question reminded me of the first major technology trend I shared with my kids, which was the cell phone. That invention got people out of the physical office and still allowed them to be productive. That first mobile phone was followed quickly by the Blackberry, then iPhone – which was my dream come true. It meant I wasn’t tied to my laptop – I could communicate with our team and customers via email and conference calls from airports, my kids’ ball games, and anywhere that had coverage. This technology trend, which is still in progress, significantly improved my lifestyle.
Internet and cellular coverage are almost ubiquitous now. I can’t wait to see what happens with technology as long as it helps us be ever-more productive and allows us to always improve the balance between our work and personal lives. A work hard, play hard mentality - with no boundaries - is what I’m hoping to see.
Please share a funny story that gives insight into the culture of TCG you’ve been telling us about.
From the first day Arnold and I talked, he treated me as an equal. There were no big egos or “show off” moments, and we covered many personal topics that aren’t typically a part of initial discussions with employers. It became clear that neither he nor I were trying to be “right” on a subject or convince the other to change his opinion. We respected each other and, to be honest, enjoyed giving each other a little bit of a hard time [laughs].
Arnold teased me that TCG needed a Southerner from the US in the company to truly be considered an international company. I loved his sense of humor and when we had TCG Council [executive team] calls with Sixto and Erwin, I could see the chiding and teasing only increased. I explained my work hard, play hard philosophy and the “kick ass” approach I like to take in this US market. Arnold thought it was a natural extension of TCG for the Southerner from New Orleans to make it happen!
What do you like to do in your free time?
I enjoy exercise, boating, cars, and anything that goes fast. In all of my years of playing sports I always enjoyed the competition, and enjoyed winning, or even learning from losing… but I was never, ever the fast one on the team. So I like my toys to go fast.
A view of New Orleans from Fresneda’s Boat
I also enjoy international travel as I think my best learning experiences have come from travel and other people -- not from books, education or certainly not from social media posts! Family means the most to me, but family has a broad definition in my book. From my father and mother, to my brother and sisters, to my own family both at home and at work… they all mean the world to me. The people that have taught me this industry and the people that I have helped educate on this industry all have a special place in my heart. I hope they all know how special they are as they have all been so very supportive to me my entire career.
