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Bpm’online is now Creatio. This Boston-based company is known for its low-code platform, process automation and powerful CRM products. Today
we talked to Katherine Kostereva, CEO and managing partner at Creatio (formerly bpm’online), to find out why they have renamed, how it influences the products they offer, and what businesses should be looking into in technology in the next couple of years.
1. Tell us a bit about the company. What do you do?
At Creatio, we provide low-code, process automation and CRM products to help companies accelerate. Our software is used by companies around the world to enhance and automate the work of their sales, marketing, service, and operations teams. We believe that in the modern market, businesses need to digitally transform and become software companies in order to meet their customer’s expectations and stay competitive, and our platform enables organizations to develop the solutions they need to do this.
Katherine Kostereva, CEO, Creatio
2. You mentioned that your software is designed to help companies accelerate. How exactly does it do so?
It’s all about low-code / no-code capabilities of Creatio. You can build your own solutions and automate processes on Creatio faster than with any other platform. Besides, our software has a wide range of out-of-the-box CRM capabilities and process templates, meaning that instead of taking months or years to be implemented, our platform takes only days or weeks to start using it and seeing results. Secondly, we help companies get to much higher levels of software adoption – our products are user-friendly and intuitive. We have a leading UX combined with AI, which helps accelerate user adoption. Thirdly, our platform promotes alignment between departments and across an entire company. Various departments are able to collaborate on a single platform with a unified database, which makes the transfer of important information and cross-department cooperation much easier. All of these factors create a synergy that promotes easy and rapid change within a company. Change is the new normal for companies hoping to grow, so this ability to quickly adapt without needing excessive professional IT help is how our technologies help companies accelerate.
3. You say you see the future where everyone will be a developer and every company will be a software company. Can you go into more detail on these concepts?
Sure, I’d love to. When talking about “everyone a developer” as a concept, it’s comparable to what has happened to photography within the past few decades. When cameras were first invented, only a few select people with the know-how of the complex machinery could become a professional photographer. Nowadays thanks to smartphones, everyone can be a photographer. Award winning photos are captured on smartphones, and photography is done everywhere every minute.
We think that the same will happen with software development in the future. Instead of complex hand-coding, new low-code tools will allow users to create software solutions to automate and optimize their work within minutes. Companies need more automation to keep up in the modern market and digitally transform, and they do so by creating apps and becoming a software company themselves. As more and more companies decide to implement low-code platforms, this future concept becomes more of a reality as anyone in their business can start developing solutions they need. We truly believe that the “everyone a developer” concept will be the future of software development because of this, and we are also very happy to play a role in creating this future.
4. Bpm’online has been on the market for quite a while, winning a number of big names as clients as well as recognitions from key industry analysts. Why did you decide to rename to Creatio now?
Honestly, we’ve been wanting to rename for a while. This year just felt like the right time to change the company’s name – like you said, our products have been continuously enhanced, and they have been well received by our customers, partners and key industry analysts like Gartner. We’re really proud of that.
Our name is the first impression people get about our platform, so we wanted a name that could describe our vision and mission better than “bpm’online” could. We wanted a name that better reflected what had always inspired us most: the powerful, unique solutions created on our platform by the community of partners and customers. So we’ve found the name that would honor all creators among our customers and partners. This is why we renamed to Creatio.
5. I know that you had quite a unique approach to renaming – how did you come up with the idea of launching your new name in the sky?
We wanted the renaming to be more than just a press release; we wanted it to be a celebration that anyone could take part in with us. During a discussion of some novel ways to announce our new name, the idea of launching it in the sky came up, and everyone thought it was great. It’s creative, eye-catching, fun, and exactly what we were looking to do for this occasion. We did press releases too, of course, along with extensive communications with our customers, partners, and analysts about the fact that we’re renaming. The skydiving idea was a way to really engage our community to celebrate the renaming with us.
6. Does renaming bring any changes to the strategy or the products you offer?
This is just renaming indeed. We’re not changing our strategy, products, culture or our team. We still provide the same great low-code BPM platform and CRM products to midsize and large enterprises worldwide, with the same mission of helping businesses accelerate.
Of course, we did have some changes to our product line this year, but they were not related to the renaming. For example, we launched Studio Creatio, free edition. It is a free product for process management professionals to design and collaborate on processes using visual tools. Users can create and model processes easily, and the platform helps to simplify process documentation as well as communication throughout the process design. Again though, this release was before the official renaming, and the renaming hasn’t changed our platform or software other than the logo that appears on the products.
7. What has the response to the new name been like so far?
Really great. I couldn’t have asked for a better response from clients, partners and the industry. Everyone reiterated that it describes our company and products much better, and that it reflects our strong belief that everyone will become a developer, able to automate ideas and create custom solutions in minutes, without coding. The engagement into our renaming activities was also huge internally. I was so surprised that over 160 of our employees would volunteer to skydive for the event. It was so inspiring that I just had to join in! The response we got really makes us confident that the renaming was as good of an idea as we thought it was. In my 17 years of being CEO, it’s one of the most memorable events we have ever had.
8. With your experience in the industry, what one piece of advice would you give to businesses for the next couple of years?
If a business wants to serve their customers better and stay competitive in the next few years, it needs to use technology to the fullest extent.
Empowering employees with solutions they need to automate their tasks and focus on more creative work is the best way to increase operational efficiency, grow, stay competitive, and transform. So be on the lookout for new technology that promotes transformation and helps your company adapt to changing demands. Doing so will keep your business up-to-date with the modern market and will enable a company to remain competitive.
Nov2019, Software Magazine
