AI Was Supposed to Make Implementations Cheaper. It Hasn't.

[00:00:00] There was this promise that AI was going to make implementations less expensive, faster, less friction. We have not yet seen evidence of that. In fact, some of our implementations are more expensive than we've seen in years past and take longer. Well, welcome, Bonnie. Thank you.

[00:00:28] Welcome to The Meg and Amy Show. I am honored to be here. So, Bonnie, can you tell us your name, who you are, and where you work? And why we love you so much. Okay, we'll add that part. Yeah, yeah, we'll add that. Okay, amazing. Bonnie Tinder, founder and CEO of Raven Intelligence. Raven is a peer review site, so we're sort of like a glass door, but we look at SIs and the implementations of HCM platforms as well as ERP.

[00:00:56] I'm based in Chicago and in Tampa, both places. So near Clearwater, get out of the cold of Chicago and go down there for the winter months. Happy to be here. That's great. And we were just talking yesterday about how I think you're the OG CEO of the HR, the female CEO, excuse me, of the HR tech industry. How is that all going? Oh, my goodness. Wow. Well, that is pretty amazing that I'm like OG.

[00:01:26] Yeah. Eight years into this. I always say it's like dog years. So I'm pretty old at this point. And how has the conference been for you so far? It's been great. You know, it's I think this is probably my 15th HR tech. One five for the people keeping count at home. We're going to 15. One five. One five. Yeah. I started attending it when it was in Chicago. You were in elementary school? That's right. Yes. When I was an itty bitty baby. It has grown, just exploded since then.

[00:01:56] And my first HR tech was Chicago as well. So maybe we're about the same number of years, although I've had more gaps. Yeah. Yeah. And there was I mean, at that show, I don't think there was a single screen. It was booths. Maybe people had laptops that they were demoing. But you look around HR tech now, you could power an entire city with all the electronics that are here. So it's exploded. The show has been great because the people and being able to rekindle and reconnect with people I haven't seen in years.

[00:02:25] I would say in this industry, the road is long and the path is narrow. So, so much of the time you may have worked with somebody 20 years ago and you see them now in a totally different business, business context. And yet the friendship is still there. My favorite thing is just seeing the people getting to know some. It's an adjacent community. It is very much so.

[00:02:50] And so, Bonnie, the thing that I love about you is you have this incredible set of data that you operate with. Right. And you have your recent study that has some really interesting insights. And I wanted to delve a little bit into one of those. You found that there was a surprising difference between platform loyalty and partner loyalty. Yes.

[00:03:18] And so tell us what surprised you about it and what the implications are for listeners. Yeah. In every single one of our reviews, we ask two distinct questions about satisfaction. First, how satisfied were you with the software? And then the second one, how satisfied were you with your partner? And that was the person who helped you and the team who helped you get live.

[00:03:41] And overwhelmingly, no matter what software the customer is reviewing, the loyalty and love was first for the partner and then for the platform. And I think the relationship that is built between the company and the individuals on a team and the camaraderie that needs to happen for a project to be successful

[00:04:09] makes the partner loyalty so much higher. And this feeling that there's a kinship and a shared goal of success. So, so much of the time on these reviews, satisfaction with the partner is higher, even though they might like their software vendor, they like the platform. That aside, there is in a good project, there is a love for the partner if they've done a good job

[00:04:36] because they truly have walked a mile with the client or in the case, sometimes a thousand miles, depending on the implementation. And so was this different in this study compared to past studies or is this an ongoing thing? I think it's better this year than we've seen in years past.

[00:04:59] But since we've started measuring this since 2018, there's always been a disparity between the two metrics. But this year, I think partners have really gone above and beyond knowing that their livelihood depends on that satisfaction rate in making clients happy. Gotcha. And it does actually say two things.

[00:05:22] Even in this era of AI, it's really the human connection and human relationships that matter. And we all feel that and we know that to be true. But I think there's another element, and I think you kind of got to that as well. Whenever you've been in a foxhole with someone, whenever you've done something hard with someone, that creates an opportunity for a deeper relationship than you would have otherwise.

[00:05:49] And I think all of us know that doing implementations are difficult. Having people in there with you is probably more important than ever. So all of the partners, good job. But also keep in mind, this is the durable relationship moment that you really need to continue to build velocity for where you're trying to go, but also for continuity of where that future takes your business.

[00:06:18] And Bonnie, what are you seeing about AI in your data? Anything interesting starting to emerge there? I think every single company, the HR department will say, we use AI. But that's the equivalent of saying, we use a computer, right? There's so many definitions. We have a cell phone. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:06:41] And what I would say our data is showing is that this idea of agentic AI or autonomous work right now, agents that are performing actions that have completely eliminated humans in the loop, I have not seen evidence of that. The other thing I would say that we see from the data is there was this promise that AI was going to make implementations less expensive, faster, less friction.

[00:07:11] We have not yet seen evidence of that. In fact, some of our implementations are more expensive than we've seen in years past and take longer. So I think this idea of reducing the time to implement, the speed, the cost, we haven't yet seen. Well, maybe the hardest part of implementations is actually the people part, right? So that would make sense. Certainly the change management side. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:07:38] We are all about inventing the future. Yeah. If you were to invent the future, what would that future look like, Bonnie? Yeah. I think it would be where tech becomes more invisible to a process. It becomes more invisible to the employee themselves. Everything that we talk about now is all about AI, AI, AI, AI.

[00:08:06] It's focused on the tech as opposed to how are we enabling work to get done better, more creatively? How are we empowering employees to do more things or better things? Not more, right? But more impactful things than in the future. And so I think inventing the future would be less focused on how do we get this tech to work

[00:08:31] and more focused on how do we continue to improve the work relationship? How do we improve the actual work product itself as opposed to how do we actually implement this stuff? So value creation versus, hey, we've got some tech to use. That's exactly right. Love it. Love it. And fewer meetings. Fewer meetings. Okay. Yeah. All right. So last question, Bonnie.

[00:08:58] What is your best strategy for managing the sensory overload of the HR Tech Conference? It's touching grass. Where do you go to touch grass? Yeah. Give some tips. It is. I look for sunlight and there's a couple of doors out here that I've seen that said exit and just the ability to get outside and outside of the conference room and actually walk.

[00:09:24] That's a huge thing for me is to disconnect for a little bit and walk around the Mandalay Bay. Speaking to Amy Wilson's soul. Yes. Yeah. And the step counter is pretty high, but I would say getting that morning sun is a big deal. Excellent. And walking. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Bonnie. Thank you, Bonnie. We are so happy to have you on the podcast and it's so good to see you in person. Yay. Yay. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:09:54] Thank you.