Rajesh Kumar, VP Marketing, UiPath India & South Asia, shares insights on B2B marketing, early growth scenarios and more in a webinar titled, ‘Digital Transformation and Marketing’, hosted by IIMB’s Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management
09 June, 2021, Bengaluru: A B2B strategist with an in-depth grasp of business transformation and driving growth in varied sectors, Rajesh Kumar, VP Marketing for UiPath India and South Asia, took the audience on an insightful tour of UiPath’s accelerated journey, B2B Marketing and more on May 30, 2021, during a discussion as part of the LeaderSpeak Series, hosted by IIM Bangalore’s two-year weekend Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management (PGPEM). The webinar, titled, ‘Digital Transformation and Marketing’, opened on a cheerful note as Rajesh joked, “I will try and be on the better side of it. I remember my days in IIMC when I was on the opposite side of the table, liking yet being critical of these talks.”
Rajesh described his background as ‘eclectic’ with things in his academics and career happening in “a mixed and random fashion in certain ways but eventually working out”. His schooling happened in hill-towns of Himachal, and the family kept moving as his father was a university teacher. He graduated from NIT, Kurukshetra. After three to four years of work, he realized his career was not leading him to a path where he wanted to go. That was also the time when MBA was the in-thing, and his friends pursuing it pushed him to do the same. He saw it as a welcome break from work where he built great networks, enjoying the whole learning experience under no pressure for grades, making the best use of the place that IIM is.
After MBA, Rajesh went on to lead marketing, sales, operations and strategy in companies like SAP, Microsoft, Perfetti, Pernod Ricard and HCL – which gave him a unique perspective and in-depth grasp of business transformation, and driving growth in varied sectors and situations. He is also the co-founder of LeadThink.org, a knowledge-based start-up for marketing professionals. He sits on the APAC CMO Council Advisory Board, Indian Board of Marketing Society, and serves as the Board Advisor for BD Foundation and pro bono advisory to social entrepreneurs.
The swift journey of UiPath
When asked to elaborate on the swift journey of UiPath - $1 million ARR to $100 million ARR in three years, and then to $580 million ARR in the last two-and-a-half years, with 65% growth rate now, being named as the fastest growing technology company in FT America’s Fastest Growing Companies 2020 – Rajesh attributed this growth and success to the culture of humility at UiPath and the leadership of its CMO Bobby Patrick, whom he calls ‘a phenomenal and an inspirational leader’.
Rajesh narrated the story of how UiPath germinated. Daniel Deniss, a Romanian founded UiPath by hiring nine people out of college. It took them 10 years to build a product as they envisaged it, but the breakthrough came through a serendipity in 2015 when they kept their company online. One of the companies in Chennai needed a solution for one of their critical problems, and the team of UiPath flew to Chennai immediately, stayed there for 10 days and solved it. This gave them an idea of what they could do and a renewed sense of direction with which they took off from there.
With Professional Services, Dev & Global Support centers set up here, India soon became their second destination. Rajesh said that UiPath unlike most tech start-ups, is not a Silicon Valley born company. They did not restrict themselves to US alone. Their business was concentrated in Asia Pacific and Europe initially and expanded to US later. About 30% of their business comes from Asia Pacific, specifically Japan, which is very unusual in tech start-ups, a major part coming from US being the norm. With 8000 customers as their customer base, two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies on their client list, UiPath went public this April, Rajesh shared.
Being the first marketing employee to come on board and having seen this growth acceleration closely, Rajesh observed that the company has had a non-hierarchical structure so far, with not many people to ask questions. Bobby Patrick, he said, is very interested in people and after the company took off, they mostly hired people who did not have to be taught and could get started from day one. Rajesh said Patrick’s ideology ran on these lines – “There is a lot of excitement in the market, but all of it does not come to us because, first thing we are not the first in the market, second thing not all know enough about the industry.” Creating brand awareness and thought leadership to get hold of the party (customer), building demand machine and creating customer intimacy and advocacy has been their three-pronged strategy to accelerate business.
Getting the narrative right
Elaborating on how they got their narrative right, Rajesh said that UiPath spent a lot of time and effort building on many organic areas. Building connect with top media in the market, identifying who the key people writing tech stories are and what their ask is – all these processes worked in their favor. “Lot of stories happen in a short time. Sometimes opportunities can be lost due to corporate communication hierarchies. But never did we lose one!”
“We used social media a lot. Decision makers are out there. The whole new-age employee base is active there. We got all the leaders to write, got all the good news shared and finally we got our customers too out on social media advocating for us. Most of this is unpaid. We connected with analyst firms, there was a mutual value as we understood how they see the market. Industry associations, especially the CXO community made our presence felt.”
Rajesh observed that it was a nascent market, and everybody was talking about themselves. “We invested in independent research to help people understand more about the industry, who is benefitting and who is growing. This was not about us - but it was something people wanted. Since we brought it in, that gave us a good position.”
Early on, UiPath’s mantra was speed over perfection. They went to a lot of industry forums and created many customer connect forums for customers to engage with them. This came directly from the belief of the founder - after the customer invested with them, they had to be successful. In their second year, the customer recognition program was started to create a platform so that the team’s work is seen within the industry by their peers. Rajesh mentioned that this was their most successful initiative in the last two years.
To take industry position, UiPath recently launched ‘Pioneers’ Automation’ where people wrote independently without reference to UiPath. “It is a forum for vendor neutral content. Industry influencers write there. Even customers of our competitors can write,” Rajesh informed, adding that UiPath set customary advisory boards too. “The customers and we are no more on different sides of the table. It was all constructive and friendly feedback helping us out!”
Digital Transformation & Automation
Responding to a question on why there has not been much progress in Digital Transformation, despite it being already 10 years since its advent, Rajesh said, “In the evolution of tech industry, data is used to drive insights and intelligence. People buy technology when their business needs it. When cloud came, it liberated people from the idea of locking. Best of breed solutions came up. Promise of Digital Transformation has been very large. Yet there is fragmentation of applications. Not all of them necessarily talk to each other. People are dealing with a multitude of applications. This is the new problem which is taking almost 80% of the time leaving no time for things more meaningful and valuable. In most organizations, people are over-stretched with the lower order work creating its own snowball. Automation and AI/ML will help change this landscape leading to more time for meaningful and higher order work. Dependency on tech experts may reduce with these technologies functioning as Personal Digital Assistant”, he observed.
But still, AI/ML has a long way to go, according to Rajesh. “Human Intelligence works in a very different stratosphere. Breaking down things which we as humans take for granted, takes a lot of intelligence – let us say even as small a task as processing invoices.”
B2B vs B2C
Talking about the nuances in B2B and the differences between B2B and B2C segments, Rajesh explained, “If your marketing is not helping drive sales, you are going to be beaten up everywhere. It is more prominent in B2B, but even in B2C, it comes back to beat you eventually. In B2C, marketing has always been somewhat the leading function. Sales is a lot more about distribution and not so much the ‘selling’. Marketing is supposed to create the likeability and pull for the brand. B2B sales sell directly to customers. The commitment is quite high. Multiple people are involved in decision making here given the inherent nature of B2B. Product has a lot more depth and the process is a lot more complex. Brand is still very important. All things being equal, people want to buy from somebody they trust. They look for a company where their values match.” B2B companies do not have sub-brands, Rajesh pointed out. Company is the brand, and the corporate brand is their brand. He added, with rise of digitalization, the line between B2B and B2C has become blurred. Everything is in subscription mode and customers can change their mind anytime.
Rajesh made an interesting observation in this context. In IIMs, the level of knowledge and information dedicated to B2B is relatively less compared to that for B2C. On the contrary, the amount of business transacted in B2B is two to three times more compared to that in B2C. Thus, most people do not start their careers with B2B. Hence, B2B segment makes for a brilliant career opportunity, according to him. He feels there is a need for MBA curriculum in different institutes to catch up with B2B.
On the lighter side
It is very important to take time off and pay back to oneself, Rajesh observes. Besides an MBA from IIM Calcutta and a Mechanical Engineering degree from NIT Kurukshetra, Rajesh has executive programs from Wharton, Harvard Business School and Indian Business School to his credit, all for the mere joy of learning, for the sheer experience of it and for staying relevant. Other than work, Rajesh dabbles in many things – whiskey blending, mixology (from his training in Seagram), cooking on the weekends – which kept him sane during the lockdown. He is also a sports and fitness enthusiast.
Rajesh Kumar, VP Marketing, UiPath India & South Asia, shares insights on B2B marketing, early growth scenarios and more in a webinar titled, ‘Digital Transformation and Marketing’, hosted by IIMB’s Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management
09 June, 2021, Bengaluru: A B2B strategist with an in-depth grasp of business transformation and driving growth in varied sectors, Rajesh Kumar, VP Marketing for UiPath India and South Asia, took the audience on an insightful tour of UiPath’s accelerated journey, B2B Marketing and more on May 30, 2021, during a discussion as part of the LeaderSpeak Series, hosted by IIM Bangalore’s two-year weekend Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management (PGPEM). The webinar, titled, ‘Digital Transformation and Marketing’, opened on a cheerful note as Rajesh joked, “I will try and be on the better side of it. I remember my days in IIMC when I was on the opposite side of the table, liking yet being critical of these talks.”
Rajesh described his background as ‘eclectic’ with things in his academics and career happening in “a mixed and random fashion in certain ways but eventually working out”. His schooling happened in hill-towns of Himachal, and the family kept moving as his father was a university teacher. He graduated from NIT, Kurukshetra. After three to four years of work, he realized his career was not leading him to a path where he wanted to go. That was also the time when MBA was the in-thing, and his friends pursuing it pushed him to do the same. He saw it as a welcome break from work where he built great networks, enjoying the whole learning experience under no pressure for grades, making the best use of the place that IIM is.
After MBA, Rajesh went on to lead marketing, sales, operations and strategy in companies like SAP, Microsoft, Perfetti, Pernod Ricard and HCL – which gave him a unique perspective and in-depth grasp of business transformation, and driving growth in varied sectors and situations. He is also the co-founder of LeadThink.org, a knowledge-based start-up for marketing professionals. He sits on the APAC CMO Council Advisory Board, Indian Board of Marketing Society, and serves as the Board Advisor for BD Foundation and pro bono advisory to social entrepreneurs.
The swift journey of UiPath
When asked to elaborate on the swift journey of UiPath - $1 million ARR to $100 million ARR in three years, and then to $580 million ARR in the last two-and-a-half years, with 65% growth rate now, being named as the fastest growing technology company in FT America’s Fastest Growing Companies 2020 – Rajesh attributed this growth and success to the culture of humility at UiPath and the leadership of its CMO Bobby Patrick, whom he calls ‘a phenomenal and an inspirational leader’.
Rajesh narrated the story of how UiPath germinated. Daniel Deniss, a Romanian founded UiPath by hiring nine people out of college. It took them 10 years to build a product as they envisaged it, but the breakthrough came through a serendipity in 2015 when they kept their company online. One of the companies in Chennai needed a solution for one of their critical problems, and the team of UiPath flew to Chennai immediately, stayed there for 10 days and solved it. This gave them an idea of what they could do and a renewed sense of direction with which they took off from there.
With Professional Services, Dev & Global Support centers set up here, India soon became their second destination. Rajesh said that UiPath unlike most tech start-ups, is not a Silicon Valley born company. They did not restrict themselves to US alone. Their business was concentrated in Asia Pacific and Europe initially and expanded to US later. About 30% of their business comes from Asia Pacific, specifically Japan, which is very unusual in tech start-ups, a major part coming from US being the norm. With 8000 customers as their customer base, two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies on their client list, UiPath went public this April, Rajesh shared.
Being the first marketing employee to come on board and having seen this growth acceleration closely, Rajesh observed that the company has had a non-hierarchical structure so far, with not many people to ask questions. Bobby Patrick, he said, is very interested in people and after the company took off, they mostly hired people who did not have to be taught and could get started from day one. Rajesh said Patrick’s ideology ran on these lines – “There is a lot of excitement in the market, but all of it does not come to us because, first thing we are not the first in the market, second thing not all know enough about the industry.” Creating brand awareness and thought leadership to get hold of the party (customer), building demand machine and creating customer intimacy and advocacy has been their three-pronged strategy to accelerate business.
Getting the narrative right
Elaborating on how they got their narrative right, Rajesh said that UiPath spent a lot of time and effort building on many organic areas. Building connect with top media in the market, identifying who the key people writing tech stories are and what their ask is – all these processes worked in their favor. “Lot of stories happen in a short time. Sometimes opportunities can be lost due to corporate communication hierarchies. But never did we lose one!”
“We used social media a lot. Decision makers are out there. The whole new-age employee base is active there. We got all the leaders to write, got all the good news shared and finally we got our customers too out on social media advocating for us. Most of this is unpaid. We connected with analyst firms, there was a mutual value as we understood how they see the market. Industry associations, especially the CXO community made our presence felt.”
Rajesh observed that it was a nascent market, and everybody was talking about themselves. “We invested in independent research to help people understand more about the industry, who is benefitting and who is growing. This was not about us - but it was something people wanted. Since we brought it in, that gave us a good position.”
Early on, UiPath’s mantra was speed over perfection. They went to a lot of industry forums and created many customer connect forums for customers to engage with them. This came directly from the belief of the founder - after the customer invested with them, they had to be successful. In their second year, the customer recognition program was started to create a platform so that the team’s work is seen within the industry by their peers. Rajesh mentioned that this was their most successful initiative in the last two years.
To take industry position, UiPath recently launched ‘Pioneers’ Automation’ where people wrote independently without reference to UiPath. “It is a forum for vendor neutral content. Industry influencers write there. Even customers of our competitors can write,” Rajesh informed, adding that UiPath set customary advisory boards too. “The customers and we are no more on different sides of the table. It was all constructive and friendly feedback helping us out!”
Digital Transformation & Automation
Responding to a question on why there has not been much progress in Digital Transformation, despite it being already 10 years since its advent, Rajesh said, “In the evolution of tech industry, data is used to drive insights and intelligence. People buy technology when their business needs it. When cloud came, it liberated people from the idea of locking. Best of breed solutions came up. Promise of Digital Transformation has been very large. Yet there is fragmentation of applications. Not all of them necessarily talk to each other. People are dealing with a multitude of applications. This is the new problem which is taking almost 80% of the time leaving no time for things more meaningful and valuable. In most organizations, people are over-stretched with the lower order work creating its own snowball. Automation and AI/ML will help change this landscape leading to more time for meaningful and higher order work. Dependency on tech experts may reduce with these technologies functioning as Personal Digital Assistant”, he observed.
But still, AI/ML has a long way to go, according to Rajesh. “Human Intelligence works in a very different stratosphere. Breaking down things which we as humans take for granted, takes a lot of intelligence – let us say even as small a task as processing invoices.”
B2B vs B2C
Talking about the nuances in B2B and the differences between B2B and B2C segments, Rajesh explained, “If your marketing is not helping drive sales, you are going to be beaten up everywhere. It is more prominent in B2B, but even in B2C, it comes back to beat you eventually. In B2C, marketing has always been somewhat the leading function. Sales is a lot more about distribution and not so much the ‘selling’. Marketing is supposed to create the likeability and pull for the brand. B2B sales sell directly to customers. The commitment is quite high. Multiple people are involved in decision making here given the inherent nature of B2B. Product has a lot more depth and the process is a lot more complex. Brand is still very important. All things being equal, people want to buy from somebody they trust. They look for a company where their values match.” B2B companies do not have sub-brands, Rajesh pointed out. Company is the brand, and the corporate brand is their brand. He added, with rise of digitalization, the line between B2B and B2C has become blurred. Everything is in subscription mode and customers can change their mind anytime.
Rajesh made an interesting observation in this context. In IIMs, the level of knowledge and information dedicated to B2B is relatively less compared to that for B2C. On the contrary, the amount of business transacted in B2B is two to three times more compared to that in B2C. Thus, most people do not start their careers with B2B. Hence, B2B segment makes for a brilliant career opportunity, according to him. He feels there is a need for MBA curriculum in different institutes to catch up with B2B.
On the lighter side
It is very important to take time off and pay back to oneself, Rajesh observes. Besides an MBA from IIM Calcutta and a Mechanical Engineering degree from NIT Kurukshetra, Rajesh has executive programs from Wharton, Harvard Business School and Indian Business School to his credit, all for the mere joy of learning, for the sheer experience of it and for staying relevant. Other than work, Rajesh dabbles in many things – whiskey blending, mixology (from his training in Seagram), cooking on the weekends – which kept him sane during the lockdown. He is also a sports and fitness enthusiast.